Real name	John Collins
Height	5.07
Weight	10.10
Date of birth	31-01-1968
Place of birth	Galashiels
Position	Midfielder
Nationality	Scotland
International Caps	58
International Goals	12

[Player Pics]

During the dark days of the early 90s there were few bright moments, and even fewer bright players. Amongst the exceptions to the rule was John Collins, a Celtic fan as a boy who group up in the Borders before starring for Hibs in the midfield. The classy player caught the eye of both sides of the Old Firm with Rangers trying to snatch him from under Celtic’s nose. Thankfully he chose to come to Celtic for a transfer fee of around £1m to Hibs (our first million pound signing). Losing him to the Dark Side is not a thought I would like to even contemplate.

Along with Paul McStay he helped to shore up what were overall poor teams, regardless of whatever our opinions of individual players. If there was one area (and most likely the only one) where we were better than Rangers in the early 90s was an entertaining dominant midfield, masterfully controlled by McStay with Collins in tow. Too often overshadowed by the McStay the fans favourite (especially amongst older fans), youngsters in general seemed to prefer Collins. McStay was never aggressive and attacking enough too often, although this was likely also as he to play too much an anchor position to haul in the team. This gave room to Collins to play the attacking role, and he played it well. His touches were great and his support play was excellent.

His high point came in two successive Old Firm games where he scored a peach of a free-kick against Rangers in both games (both also being mirror images of each others). The notable fact for any anoraks out there was that the first of them was the first scored using the new Adidas Predator Boot.

Another memorable moment in Collins' time at Celtic was a hat-trick scored against Hearts. Indeed, the hat-trick was mentioned on the BBC evening news at a time when little attention was paid to Scottish football south of the border.

Another high point was after being slated by journalist Gerry McNee in one of his columns for being over-rated. He scored a couple in the game and bagged PoTM on the same day and sarcastically dedicated it to McNee. (Note: Gerry McNee was a sycophantic pandering poodle to Rangers through much of that period (as he still is!), and his incessant attacks on the Celtic were always pathetic).

Regardless of his talent, Celtic achieved next to nothing during much of his time here, but that was not his fault in anyway being as said one of the better players during that time, with only the Scottish Cup in 1995 to show. It is frightening how much worse we would have been if he had not come to us. After 6years at the club, he ended up moving onto Monaco in controversial circumstances at the end of his contract for free, which saw Fergus McCann (Celtic’s Chief Exec at the time) take his new club to court. Bizarrely, the courts judged that Monaco in football terms were classed as a French Club even though its not in the EU so we got no money back.

He had a successful spell at Monaco (where they reached the European Cup Semis knocking out Man U!), followed by another at Everton and Fulham in England before retiring from playing football. At time of writing, he has returned to Edinburgh and replaced former team-mate Tony Mowbray as the manager of Hibs. I hope him all the best in his new role.

Collins had a successful international career. He represented Scotland fifty-eight times and scored on twelve occasions. A memorable highlight of his Scotland career was playing in France '98, scoring against eventual runners up Brazil.


Pictures

• John Collins Pictures

Career

Club	From	To	Fee	League	FA Cup	League cup	Other
Fulham	14-07-2000	02-06-2003	£ 2,000,000	54 (11)	3	5 (1)	0	4 (0)	1	3 (1)	0
Everton	01-08-1998	14-07-2000	£ 2,500,000	52 (3)	3	4 (0)	0	3 (2)	1	0 (0)	0
Monaco	01-08-1996	01-08-1998	Free	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	4 (0)	0
Celtic	13-07-1990	01-08-1996	£ 1,000,000	218 (3)	47	2 (0)	0	3 (0)	1	3 (0)	0
Hibernian	01-08-1984	13-07-1990	Signed	163 (0)	15	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Totals	£ 5,500,000	487 (17)	68	11 (1)	0	10 (2)	3	10 (1)	0
	goals / game	0.13	0	0.25	0
	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals