Utility man Halliday has nothing to apologise for
WHAT is the most humiliated you have ever been? That excruciating and never-to-beforgotten time the earth couldn’t open up beneath your feet quickly enough.
Awful, isn’t it. The embarrassment stays with you long after it’s been forgotten by everyone else. I doubt there is a single person who hasn’t at least once thought about not turning up at the office for fear of what anyone is going to say following a regrettable lapse in behaviour the night before. This usually happens around Christmas time.
But have you ever been made fun of in front of 50,000 people when half of the witnesses gleefully and loudly revelled in your misfortune? I doubt it.
This brings me to Andy Halliday.
At Hampden, a little over three years ago, Celtic used Rangers as shooting practice during a Scottish Cup semifinal. With the Ibrox men 2-0 down, and fortunate to be so, Halliday was substituted four minutes before half-time by Graham Murty, the likeable yet completely out-of-his-depth interim manager.
This was an unnecessary and harsh decision. Sure, Rangers had to change things but why not wait until everyone got back in the dressing room? Halliday was the fall guy. His temper got the best of him when, with cheeks red with shame and anger, he made his way to his seat in the stand where he was verbally abused by a Rangers supporter.
The Celtic fans were not going to miss out. This wasn’t just a player for their biggest rivals, it was one who proudly admitted to being a Rangers supporter who two years before celebrated his side beating Celtic in this very fixture as if he’d just won the World Cup. And they gleefully chanted his name.
Halliday had to sit there and take it. How does anyone come back from that? I would never leave the house again. And it wasn’t the first time the fan turned player had been thrown to the wolves.
Halliday had stood up to Pedro Caixinha when it turned out the fifth best manager in Qatari football was not up to managing Rangers. He was loaned out to a club in Azerbaijan of all places where he couldn’t get a game because there were too many foreigners in the squad and so he was unable play.
He came back from that, with dignity intact, only to suffer that Hampden humiliation.
Halliday was on his way out of Rangers when Steven Gerrard came in. It would have been easy for him to slip out the back door. Who needs that kind of hassle when life is so short?
However, yet again this robust character got his head down, didn’t complain, worked hard and won his way back into the Rangers team, albeit he wasn’t a regular starter. years at Rangers, this free transfer was more than OK. Limited perhaps but at least he tried and didn’t pretend he was anything other than he was.
Halliday was popular because his team-mates could see what the club meant to him. They respected how he had fought back after being kicked to the ground. A good lad, solid pro, decent player who could perform in a few positions and when asked to speak to the media always did with grace, intelligence and a lack of BS.
In short, Andy Halliday has nothing to apologise for when looking back on his contribution to Rangers since the season he helped them win promotion. He has been left got over the past week after five years.
Some of the things I have read online and, it must be said, in print about this guy has had me shaking my head. One scribe said that no Rangers fan would mourn his departure, as if the club were rid of a bad apple when he was anything but the sort.
His only regret was that he didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to the supporters. He was always the last one off the pitch after a match. He was the punter who got lucky. Halliday was a footballer who gave his all, appreciated where he was and showed strength most of us don’t have to keep going in the face of rejection. He has nothing to apologise for.
Rangers have been deluged with cheats and liars, folk only out for themselves, over the past few years. Halliday is not one of them. He was strong enough to keep going when it would have been easier to give up. At 28, he still has a lot to give and spoke last week of trying out MLS. Whatever he does, I wish Halliday every success and a quieter life. He deserves that.