IF YOU don t know who Neil McCann is right now, you ll become familiar with him in the coming months. McCann is, quite simply, one of the finest young players Scotland has produced in years, and it is to their eternal shame that they opted not to take him to the World Cup finals last summer. A fast, tricky winger with splendid technique, he gives the lie to those who assert that Scottish football can now produce only hammer-throwers rather than piano-tinklers.
McCann cost Rangers several million pounds from Hearts last December. He scored two coruscating goals for them against Dundee the other week, and laid on two more for Jvrg Albertz (one of the two best players in Scotland, and the man who McCann has displaced from his usual position on the left). He is also a certainty to make his full debut for Scotland against Bosnia Hercegovina later this month, thereby increasing Craig Brown s attacking at a single stroke.
All this would make him an interesting enough character in his own right. But perhaps the most intriguing thing about Neil McCann is the fact that he is a Scottish Roman Catholic on the payroll of The Most Staunchly Protestant Club In The World . . . Ever.
Worse, he supported Celtic as a wee boy. Indeed, the real beauty of it is that McCann s transfer to Rangers was delayed by a week, because, according to reports, he was waiting for a counter-bid to arrive on Hearts desk from Celtic. It never came.
The very fact that there has been no huge media conflagration about McCann joining Rangers is a story in itself. The only precedent we have for something like this is their 1989 signing of Mo Johnston, whose arrival was treated in the same manner as the publication of The Satanic Verses, with season tickets being either set alight outside Ibrox or returned to the club by post.
Then again, maybe it s not that surprising. Rangers have broadened their doctrinal palette somewhat since the dark days of Scot Symon s homogeneous team in the 1960s, and even since the Graeme Souness era of the late 1980s, when record signing Trevor Francis was harassed because of rumours that he had sent his children to a Catholic school.
A few years ago, Foul Play perused an interview with one Danny Houston, an honorary Deputy Grand Master of the Orange Lodge in Glasgow. In it, Houston had some fairly forceful things to say about the potential recruitment of Catholics to the Gers cause.
While stressing that he had no objection to Rangers signing a foreign Catholic, which was very big of him, Houston insisted repeatedly that Roman Catholicism in the west of Scotland is synonymous with Irish Republicanism . He went on to admit that he boycotted Rangers during the Johnston era (1989-91).
I wonder how he feels now when he watches McCann slaloming down the left wing at Ibrox Park, leaving defenders in his wake, before teeing the ball up for Jonatan Johansson or whoever.
Rangers moves towards the religious mainstream began two years ago. Not content with buying Ukrainians, Norwegians, Serbs and even Chilean Jews (Sebastian Rozental), Walter Smith began the process of assimilation in earnest by signing umpteen Italians such as Gattuso, Porrini and Negri. Dick Advocaat has maintained it by snapping up the likes of Argentina s Gabriel Amato and France s Lionel Charbonnier.
But the signing of a Scottish Catholic remained the primary bone of contention.
And yet, in 1996 Rangers even went so far as to appoint a Catholic chief executive, Bob Brannan, to serve under club owner David Murray. Brannan, incidentally, quit his post a few weeks ago, for reasons which apparently had nothing to do with either his religion or the quality of his work.
Now, all this is laudable, but it doesn t alter the fact that, like Celtic, Rangers have some of the worst fans in Europe, a pig-ignorant large minority who spend more time thinking up ingeniously disgusting terrace chants than they do watching the game. If these people are aware of McCann s religion, then the reason they haven t abused him so far is because he s playing out of his skin. If they don t know he s a Catholic, then I sincerely hope he didn t sign a binding six-year contract.
Recently, some xenophobic savage, a writer in the Rangers match programme for their UEFA Cup tie against Parma, suggested that the Italian flag should be a white sheet . The presence of Porrini, Amoruso et al in the team made it all the more incredible.
An earlier issue contained references to the scum who follow Aberdeen. This material, I stress again, was printed in the official match programme, produced with the assistance and authorisation of the club authorities themselves.
The mind positively reels at the thought of what sort of stuff is being printed in the hateful, shitty little fanzines sold outside Ibrox for 50p . . . although, having perused one such publication after a colleague brought it back from a trip to Scotland, we can safely assume that hymns of praise to 2 Para Regiment and sub-literate, anti-Celtic polemic are the order of the day.
Those clowns won t need any encouraging to turn their sights on Neil McCann if and when he fucks up for Rangers. Speaking even as a Celtic fan, I hope that day is a long way off. n