Who has suffered the most from Old Firm pilfering?

[Pennywise]

I would argue that any club that builds up a half decent squad will eventually have to sell the best players on for profit. QotS is a perfect example this season!

 

I will always look at David Templeton as a perfect example of what will happen to a player who chases the pound sign.

 

 

 

Must agree with the OP with regards to talent within Scottish football going to the old firm.

 

I (personally) want players who really (REALLY) want to play for Hearts. Grew up supporting the club and dreamt of playing for the club.. I'm off on a tangent now but if we could keep out current squad (notably: King, Walker, Nicholson, Paterson) we could challenge Celtic within a few seasons.

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

I think one of the teams that suffered most was Dundee when rangers signed the Polish midfielder that was a standout for them. Think he sat on the bench his whole ibrox career.Cannot mind his name though

Dariusz Adamczyk

[Gigolo-Aunt]

Another thing when the OF buy from Scotland (if there is a fee), at least the money stays in Scotland, which in turn is usually spread through the Scottish Leagues.

[2NaFish]

How much did we pay for Neil McCann?

 

Did wolves pilfer Colin Cameron?

 

Celtic's initial bid for Hartley was derisory but united made a similarly lowball bid for Wilson last summer, so it's hardly contained. But we see it differently when the OF do it

[Gigolo-Aunt]

How much did we pay for Neil McCann?

 

Did wolves pilfer Colin Cameron?

 

Celtic's initial bid for Hartley was derisory but united made a similarly lowball bid for Wilson last summer, so it's hardly contained. But we see it differently when the OF do it

 

If memory serves me right, McCann was almost going to play his football in Austria and we got him for 30k as he was at the end of his contract?

 

We actually taken a couple of their players in McCann/Hamilton in quite a short period of time.

[SectionDJambo]

It has always been disappointing to lose one of our best players to Celtic or Rangers. What has made it worse, has been the many occasions of tapping through the press, or using a players agent to unsettle his position at the club.

I remember Paul Ritchie contributed to an article in the Rangers News, whilst still a Hearts player. It was widely assumed, at the time, that Willie Wallace had been tapped by Celtic, thereby affecting his form for Hearts, which made his transfer, when the clubs could hold a player, more likely. Celtic did not pay a lot of money for him.

There has been a suggestion made, before, that David Murray had pals in the banks, who may have either told him the financial position of rival clubs, or were happy to put pressure on those clubs to accept a transfer fee from Rangers, even if it was not big enough for the standard of player involved.

Of course it is understandable that a big club will attract players from smaller clubs in the same country, but it is the underlying suspicion of dodgy goings on, that annoys the fans of the smaller clubs most.

We have scored in dealings with them sometimes too, of course. ?500,000 for Mike Galloway was crazy money. Antti Niemi, Sandy Clark, Sandy Jardine, Alex MacDonald and John Colquhoun were great business for Hearts.

[wavydavy]

I was involved in a discussion today with a Celtic fan about them always pinching the rest of Scotland's talent, and quite easily put him in his place when I suggested they don't need a youth set up, because the rest of Scotland is their youth set up, and that before Rangers fell into troubled times, they were exactly the same, but it got me thinking, who has suffered the most because of the Old Firm since David Murray (I deliberately left out the "sir" part), ruined Scottish football in the mid 80's? 

 

We've lost the likes of McPherson, Galloway, McKinlay, McLaren, Ritchie, Pressley, Hartley, and many more who I can't think of right now, and I genuinely thought we'd been worst affected, but then I thought that Hibs had lost a fair few to the uglies as well, but Dundee Utd have lost a few as well as Aberdeen. 

 

So who's suffered most? 

 

 

These things have a habit of going in cycles. Currently it seems as if Dundee Utd are the club losing their best players to Celtic. It happened to us a few years back losing players to Rangers. I can't see it happening again soon though because the players we are signing now have eyes for the English leagues.

 

At the end of the day all the clubs want this to happen as it is a way of upping their income and every now and again one exceptional player will appear and get a bit more money for the selling club.

 

Agents are very shrewd nowadays and promising young players are going for a development fee only on the advice of these guys rather than going whilst still under contract. It's a risky game plan and it will be interesting to see where Jason Holt ends up and how much we get for him if anything.

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

It has always been disappointing to lose one of our best players to Celtic or Rangers. What has made it worse, has been the many occasions of tapping through the press, or using a players agent to unsettle his position at the club.

I remember Paul Ritchie contributed to an article in the Rangers News, whilst still a Hearts player. It was widely assumed, at the time, that Willie Wallace had been tapped by Celtic, thereby affecting his form for Hearts, which made his transfer, when the clubs could hold a player, more likely. Celtic did not pay a lot of money for him.

There has been a suggestion made, before, that David Murray had pals in the banks, who may have either told him the financial position of rival clubs, or were happy to put pressure on those clubs to accept a transfer fee from Rangers, even if it was not big enough for the standard of player involved.

Of course it is understandable that a big club will attract players from smaller clubs in the same country, but it is the underlying suspicion of dodgy goings on, that annoys the fans of the smaller clubs most.

We have scored in dealings with them sometimes too, of course. ?500,000 for Mike Galloway was crazy money. Antti Niemi, Sandy Clark, Sandy Jardine, Alex MacDonald and John Colquhoun were great business for Hearts.

David Murray - Gavin Masterton - BoS I believe was the rumoured axis of evil.

[Pans Jambo]

Lee Wallace is the one who has suffered most out of that lot. Temps wasn't ever going to go much higher but Wallace should've had the Scotland LB place nailed down and be playing in the EPL IMO. He's actually shite now.

That is very sad but unfortunately very true.

[2NaFish]

If memory serves me right, McCann was almost going to play his football in Austria and we got him for 30k as he was at the end of his contract?

 

We actually taken a couple of their players in McCann/Hamilton in quite a short period of time.

 

If i had to guess, i thought it was 60k but it was peanuts for a highly thought of player. Whatever it is, we got our money's worth and a decent fee in return - i still rate his coca-cola league cup final as the best individual performance i've ever see from a hearts player

 

 

How gutted must QOTS be? They had gavin reilly clean through on goal against rangers and could've been on the way to the top flight, now their team has been gutted for the cost of few tribunals. Big clubs picking up players 'on the cheap' happens throughout the leagues.

[TriggersBroom]

I'd say Hibs were worst affected by the sales to Rangers or Celtic. 

Think Latapy, Miller, Riorden, Whittaker, Brown, Thomson are standouts - anyone else? 

 

Dundee United have lost likes of Steven Thompson, Mackay-Steven, Armstrong, Wilson.

Kilmarnock lost Boyd and Naismith. 

Aberdeen haven't lost that many, have they? Mulgrew? Foster? 

 

Fact is that Scottish teams prefer to sell their players to clubs outwith Scotland. Look at the likes of Steven Fletcher, David Goodwillie, Scott Allen etc, all went down south despite wanting (apparently) to sign for the Old Firm.

[Bert Le Clos]

For me we've suffered most in terms of the quality of player we've lost to the OF over the years. Hibs probably suffered most given the number of players they lost in a relatively short period of time, but other than Brown none of them went on to do anything of note after leaving them for mainly Celtic, or Rangers.

 

McKinlay, McLaren, McPherson, McCann and Hartley all left Hearts and became mainstays or the Rangers/Celtic team they went to and were also regulars for Scotland after they made the move west. There's maybe even a couple more I've forgotten. Although we did sign McPherson from Rangers and got a good few years out of him when he returned.

 

Even Lee Wallace, despite not having developed much as a footballer, has been Rangers most important player since he went to them.

 

Paul Ritchie is the one who rankles me the most. His career came to nothing after he moved to them (not completely Rangers fault though), we were substantially weakened, not financially compensated and Rangers made money from him. A complete joke of a situation.

 

I also refuse to believe Rangers weren't involved in us losing Webster and him then ending up at them on loan. The connection between Wigan, Whelan, JJB Sports and Rangers at the time was far too much of a coincidence. I'm just glad his injuries denied him playing much for Rangers or I think we'd have seen him spend the rest of his career with them.

 

Quality wise, over the years I feel we've definitely suffered most.

[rudi]

I wouldn't say we have suffered from any pilfering what I would say is that we have benefited financially from them, I would recon we have raked in around ?10-12m over the past 15-20 years, fact is we have benefited big time form pilfering from smaller teams ourselves but that seems to be okay though.

[Debut 4]

One instance that highlights the element of taking a player for the sake of it was Darius Adamczuk from Dundee.

 

He had ONE decent season and Rangers signed him. I remember him giving us a torrid time and scoring in 1999 at Tynie once our bad run had set in but he was nothing better than a glorified Barasa.

 

Disappeared once he moved to Rangers.

[BudgeUp]

Every team in Scotland has been equally affected by this. No one can claim a divine grievance.

 

It's all about economies of scale. Better teams in the SPL will get more taken from them and lesser teams less. Net result is both become poor sides, fans get less and less interested and competition to the Of remains the same.

[Jammy T]

As folk have said players will always move to bigger clubs

 

What appears to have happened in Scotland however is that Murray pulled strings behind the scenes with his chums in the BOS with whom most clubs had massive overdrafts to put pressure on clubs to accept lower sales prices to pay off some of their debt.

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

As folk have said players will always move to bigger clubs

 

What appears to have happened in Scotland however is that Murray pulled strings behind the scenes with his chums in the BOS with whom most clubs had massive overdrafts to put pressure on clubs to accept lower sales prices to pay off some of their debt.

Murray's mates always had his back, allegedly:

 

http://www.ianfraser.org/gavin-masterton-and-the-riddle-of-charlotte-18/

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Whelan

[Doctor FinnBarr]

Velicka went to a norwegian team before he was signed for rangers. Although your point that we got good money (and they in turn paid good money for him) is true.

 

Wasn't it the case that we only had him on loan and never got a penny?

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

Wasn't it the case that we only had him on loan and never got a penny?

Didn't Romanov refuse to sell him to Rangers, so Egil Ostenstad (shite former Rangers forward) bought him from us/Kaunas/Vlad and promptly shifted him on to Rangers. The cash went to Kaunas I think.

[Doctor FinnBarr]

Didn't Romanov refuse to sell him to Rangers, so Egil Ostenstad (shite former Rangers forward) bought him from us/Kaunas/Vlad and promptly shifted him on to Rangers. The cash went to Kaunas I think.

 

Aye, something along those lines.

[2NaFish]

Wasn't it the case that we only had him on loan and never got a penny?

 

All went towards Vlad's business empire. Their money was out money

 

[CBjambo]

I'd like to ask who's career has been ruined by signing for the uglies?!

 

Surely for starters Alan Gow and our very own 'Stroller' have to be up there?!

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

I'd like to ask who's career has been ruined by signing for the uglies?!

 

Surely for starters Alan Gow and our very own 'Stroller' have to be up there?!

Ritchie

Adamczyk

Mark Wilson

 

All debatable, and hard to really quantify. Chris Killen?

[Paul cherry]

Ritchie

Adamczyk

Mark Wilson

All debatable, and hard to really quantify. Chris Killen?

What happened with alan mclaren? Did he play well for rangers before his injury? Recall a game against Italy where he had Baggio in his back pocket, but can't remember if he was with us or them when that was played.

[doctor jambo]

Ritchie

Adamczyk

Mark Wilson

 

All debatable, and hard to really quantify. Chris Killen?

Jon Daly

Temps

Velicka

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

What happened with alan mclaren? Did he play well for rangers before his injury? Recall a game against Italy where he had Baggio in his back pocket, but can't remember if he was with us or them when that was played.

Popular opinion at the time was that his knee was that his knee was already done before he moved. He definitely played against us a few times though, so not sure

[MacDonald Jardine]

What happened with alan mclaren? Did he play well for rangers before his injury? Recall a game against Italy where he had Baggio in his back pocket, but can't remember if he was with us or them when that was played.

Yes he did. He was always going to be a top player but for injury.

 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[rudi]

What happened with alan mclaren? Did he play well for rangers before his injury? Recall a game against Italy where he had Baggio in his back pocket, but can't remember if he was with us or them when that was played.

Played that well for them he was POTY for the pans hun supporters club, as far as I know he still does work for them as a meeter and greeter.

[rudi]

I'd like to ask who's career has been ruined by signing for the uglies?!

 

Surely for starters Alan Gow and our very own 'Stroller' have to be up there?!

This kind of thing happens all the time at bigger clubs some players just don't fit but unlike lesser clubs who have very little option but to play players they (the bigger clubs) have/had the financial clout to get someone else in who does fit the bill, it's not exclusive to the OF.

[Craig Gordons Gloves]

I'm sure London Hearts will have more detail but in the past 30 years i can remember the following leaving us to go direct to the OF, similarly - there are players that we got from the OF.

Players going west:

 

McPherson

McLaren

McCann

Templeton

Wallace

Galloway

Hartley

Pressley (kind of)

Wallace

McKinlay

Ritchie

Wilson

 

Players coming east

McPherson

Burns

Colquhoun

Niemi

Petric

Mahe

Jardine

MacDonald

Derek Ferguson

 

I'm sure there are maybe a couple more going back and forth but all in all - that's since the 80s.  Not really a huge amount in the grand scheme of things.  Obviously doesn't include the ones that end up there after leaving us and going elsewhere. 

[rudi]

I'm sure London Hearts will have more detail but in the past 30 years i can remember the following leaving us to go direct to the OF, similarly - there are players that we got from the OF.

Players going west:

 

McPherson

McLaren

McCann

Templeton

Wallace

Galloway

Hartley

Pressley (kind of)

Wallace

McKinlay

Ritchie

Wilson

 

Players coming east

McPherson

Burns

Colquhoun

Niemi

Petric

Mahe

Jardine

MacDonald

Derek Ferguson

 

I'm sure there are maybe a couple more going back and forth but all in all - that's since the 80s.  Not really a huge amount in the grand scheme of things.  Obviously doesn't include the ones that end up there after leaving us and going elsewhere.

Add Durie and Jackson to players coming east, thing is we spent about ?1.5-?2m at best on these players we received around ?9m plus another ?2m for the sale of Niemi, I've said it on many occasion that we have done far better out of deals with the OF than they have with us.

[dode]

Did Hibs not lose an entire team when Celtic were formed,that must have hurt in 1888.

[Guest Bilel Mohsni]

Thank **** the Old Firm are here to break up our teams, rather have a million pounds every five years than challenge for the title. Saving us from ourselves really. The natural order must NEVER be disrupted.

[The White Cockade]

the original Hibernians had their entire squad pilfered

difficult to top that

[Gigolo-Aunt]

This kind of thing happens all the time at bigger clubs some players just don't fit but unlike lesser clubs who have very little option but to play players they (the bigger clubs) have/had the financial clout to get someone else in who does fit the bill, it's not exclusive to the OF.

 

 

Fair point.

[Jarhead]

What happened with alan mclaren? Did he play well for rangers before his injury? Recall a game against Italy where he had Baggio in his back pocket, but can't remember if he was with us or them when that was played.

IIRC Mclaren captained Rangers the night they secured 9 in a row.

[Jarhead]

I wouldn't say we have suffered from any pilfering what I would say is that we have benefited financially from them, I would recon we have raked in around ?10-12m over the past 15-20 years, fact is we have benefited big time form pilfering from smaller teams ourselves but that seems to be okay though.

I would agree that we've mugged plenty of other teams over the years but I've always felt we were doing it to try and improve our team.

Rangers in the Murray years seemed to take anyone who showed any form on a speculative punt. If they got a bargain, good. If they weren't good enough then they've damaged a potential opponent, even better. That's how they came across to me.

[Boris]

I would agree that we've mugged plenty of other teams over the years but I've always felt we were doing it to try and improve our team.

Rangers in the Murray years seemed to take anyone who showed any form on a speculative punt. If they got a bargain, good. If they weren't good enough then they've damaged a potential opponent, even better. That's how they came across to me.