HIS ONLY CRIME WAS OUTGROWING THE DOMESTIC SCENE IN SCOTLAND

ADEVOTED member of the Wishaw Emerald Celtic supporters’ bus, Kieran Tierney spent his childhood Saturday afternoons waiting outside Celtic Park for autographs from Henrik Larsson and Bobo Balde.

When Scott Brown hoisted the league trophy in 2012, kicking off eight-in-a-row, he was a 13-year-old ball boy at Parkhead hoping to make it big as a footballer at his boyhood heroes while idolising the club’s Honduran international leftback Emilio Izaguirre.

Over the past four years, Tierney first fulfilled his wish of becoming a Celtic first-team player at 17 then at 20 he captained the club. Along the way he has lived out his wildest dreams, making history and collecting silverware, while forging the deepest of bonds with his fellow dyed-in-the-wool supporters.

Yet perhaps the biggest moment that cemented Tierney’s Bhoy’s own story in the eyes of the Celtic fans arrived without him kicking a ball. Elbowed in the face by Aberdeen’s Jayden Stockley during the Scottish Cup final in 2017, he was rushed to hospital for emergency dental surgery.

Footage later emerged of Tierney racing through the Hampden car park — still wearing his kit — and sprinting up the steps outside the ground and back on to the pitch in time to receive his third and final medal of the season as Celtic clinched an unprecedented invincible Treble under Brendan Rodgers.

‘I’d have spat my teeth out to play on,’ Tierney said later, further burnishing his already iconic status amongst the rank-and-file.

Yet while Tierney was often found, megaphone in hand, leading the Green Brigade in noisy celebrations after yet another trophy win, the new Arsenal full-back has never needed to talk up the on-pitch ability that has long marked him out as a big fish destined to outgrow Scottish football.

Towards the end of his breakthrough season in Scottish football, 2015-16, Celtic manager Ronny Deila had seen enough to make the bold claim that the teenage left-back could become Scotland’s first world-class footballer since Kenny Dalglish 30 years earlier.

A key milestone in Tierney’s rise came when the Norwegian boss handed him a European baptism of fire in 2015 in the Europa League against a Fenerbahce side boasting a pair of former Manchester United stars.

‘I still remember the buildup when I was being shown video clips of Nani and Robin van Persie and I was thinking: “You’re joking! No chance!”, recalled Tierney.

‘I was quite nervous and scared at first but once the game started, I forgot about that and tried to play my normal game. After that night, Ronny trusted me in big games.’

By now, Arsenal, Manchester City, and Liverpool were all on the trail of the Celtic starlet, who became the thirdyoungest post-war debutant for Scotland — after Denis Law and Willie Henderson — when he earned his first cap in a 1-0 friendly win over Denmark at Hampden in March 2016. ‘Yes, it’s big clubs — but it’s just Celtic for me,’ said Tierney after being named PFA Scotland’s Young Player of the Year at the end of his first full season. ‘Celtic is my dream club. I am playing first-team football for the club I grew up supporting and I am loving every minute of it.’ Former Liverpool boss Rodgers had heard all the hype surrounding the young defender before taking up the post of Celtic manager in May 2016 but preferred to withhold judgement until he had seen the left-back with his own eyes. However, within 48 hours of taking his first pre-season training session, the Northern Irishman was a fully paid-up member of the Tierney fan club.

‘Kieran will be a top player,’ stated Rodgers.

‘For sure. Absolutely, 100 per cent he will be. There’s no question about that. I’ve worked with players I consider to be the two best full-backs in Britain — Danny Rose at Watford and Ryan Bertrand at Chelsea — and Kieran is right up there with those boys.’

When Celtic were drawn with Barcelona in the Champions League in Rodgers’ first season, it allowed Tierney a walk down memory lane as he considered his remarkable and rapid rise.

Four years earlier, he had been a

15-year-old ball boy as Neil Lennon’s side beat Lionel Messi and Co at Parkhead in November 2012, with Victor Wanyama and Tony Watt securing a memorable 2-1 triumph.

‘I was sitting in the corner in front of the Green Brigade when Wanyama scored,’ he recalled.

‘He ran towards me before checking away at the last minute. Who would have known that the ball boy sitting in front of the Green Brigade would play for Celtic?’

There is no doubt Tierney the Celtic fan was genuine and having the time of his life as he won four league titles, two Scottish Cups and two Betfred Cups.

But it became increasingly clear that Tierney the footballer was hitting a glass ceiling in Scotland. Unsurprisingly, he soon found himself facing a stark choice.

Should he stick around to try and help Celtic to nine and the mythical ten-in-a-row? Or should he take the opportunity to join Arsenal and see if his prodigious talent can take him to the very top of the game?

His Scotland team-mate Andrew Robertson has blossomed down south into a world-class player and a Champions League winner under Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.

Tierney would only be human if he looked at Robertson and thought he, too, could succeed down south where his wages are likely to be tripled.

The Celtic board, for their part, will be delighted with the £25million windfall that sees Tierney become the most expensive Scottish player of all time.

Of course on social media, that seething cesspit of bitterness, the reaction was not kind in some quarters with Tierney accused of being a money-grabber and ‘a total kiddy-on’ Celtic man.

But Lennon surely spoke for the more rational and measured in the club’s support base as he praised a player whose only crime was that his talent outgrew the Scottish domestic scene and will now be given a chance to shine on a bigger stage.

‘He goes with everyone’s best wishes,’ said Lennon. ‘He’s an outstanding talent and a great kid.’