The end of a great career

Johnston scores against Sweden during Italia '90

BBC Scotland's Chick Young salutes the career of a player that has served every club that he has played for with dedication - Mo Johnston.

Those suffering from Old Firm tunnel vision would of course not be able to see beyond the end of their own blue and green noses and the tribal insanity of Sunday...but four days earlier the most headlined career in Scottish football came to a quiet end.

Maurice Johnston hung up his boots after a final 90 minutes for Kansas City Wizards in a match against the wonderfully named Laguna Santos in America...and I'll bet not one fan on either side of the great divide at Celtic Park gave him one thought.

Well Celtic fans wouldn't, would they? For them Mo will always be Judas. A one time Parkhead pin-up who not only sold his soul to the devil, or David Murray as he is known in other parts, but also did it while negotiating a deal with his once beloved Celts with the hand that was hidden behind his back.

Plenty of Rangers fans never really accepted the wee man because....well, he was one of THEM, wasn't he? One of the great unwashed.

Johnston crossed the Old Firm divide

The real issue should have been of course was that Mo Johnston was a wonderful footballer who committed himself totally to whoever was paying his ultimately not unimpressive wages. But he did that when he was playing for coppers at Partick Thistle, he did it a Watford, Nantes and right to the end with Kansas.

The sad truth is that I have to admit that in my lifetime I will probably never again cover a Scottish football story of the magnitude of Mo signing for Rangers.

Indictment

Sad, because the towering headlines were an indictment of the way we live in the west of Scotland. It wasn't that the Ibrox club had signed a wonderful football player. It was that they had signed a Roman Catholic.

But let me tell you this. Every reasonable person in this country should salute Johnston.

Alongside Graeme Souness he revolutionised the thinking of a giant club who had steadfastly refused to accept that their fortunes might be improved by signing players who were of a faith unadjacent to that of players who had played for them for a century. The fact that probably only a tiny percentage had attended a church of any description was to be considered neither here nor there.

It took Souness and Johnston together. A combination of devilment and money, probably, but mostly huge courage.

Mo Johnston became a magnificent player for Rangers, just as he had been for the other half of the Old Firm.

Souness signed Johnston for Rangers

I remember well the scenes outide Ibrox that summer day. Fans with tatoos of a man on a white horse on their arms burning their season tickets. Red, white and blue scrarves being ripped into confetti. Scary biscuits.

Mo had serious protection for a year after the deal to protect from the lunatics, but the vaguely comforting news is that the bodyguards were all but redundant. The only thing that was a danger to Mo was flying champagne corks.

But thanks to that whole affair we have made progess. I have currently no idea how many Roman Catholics are employed by Rangers because I am not small minded enough to care...but I do know they are.

Thanks to the trail blazed by Mo Johnston there wasn't one maniac outside of Ibrox when they were signed nor one scream of derision when a former club captain blessed himself as he ran out of the tunnel.

Mo, his wife and his four kids are currently living happily ever after in the midwest of the USA where they might have plenty problems about race, but the Catholic-Protestant thing sure isn't one of them. He was a terrific player for all his clubs and his country and I dearly wish Scotland had his like to play up front again.

Furthermore here's another point which will be lost on the Old Firm fans carrying baggage of a bygone age...Mo's a brilliant guy.