Ex-Celtic player Alan Thompson appeared on a recent edition of the BBC’s Sportsound Scottish football podcast where he discussed his time at Parkhead and one of the topics that the former England international discussed during the show is why he made the decision to join Celtic in September 2000.
Thompson scored 51 goals during his time at Celtic, making a total of 227 appearances for the Hoops. He originally moved to Parkhead in 2000, joining from Aston Villa for £3.96m according to Transfermarkt.
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During his recent appearance on the BBC’s Sportsound Scottish football podcast, Thompson revealed what led to his decision to become a Celtic player in 2000, saying: “Initially, I nearly signed for Martin [O’Neill] when he was manager of Leicester City, but I chose Aston Villa instead.
“So, I’d already had communication with Martin in the past so he obviously quite liked me as a player because he tried to sign me at Leicester before Celtic, so I knew all about Martin.
“And I had one or two friends playing up at Celtic at the time as well who I kept in touch with, so I knew what was going on, I knew Celtic were second-best at that period of time, and when I had the opportunity to go up it was a no-brainer, to be honest.”
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TIF Thoughts…
As Thompson says, Celtic were not on top of Scottish football when he joined the club, having failed to win the Scottish Premier League title in both the 1998/1999 season and the 1999/00 season.
However, he decided to join the club regardless of that, and it appears that his familiarity with O’Neill, who became the Hoops’ manager in June 2000, just three months before Thompson joined the club, played an important role in him making this decision.
This may have been a wise decision, in hindsight, as Thompson went on to win four Scottish top-flight championships during his time at the club as a player.