McBurnie: I long to play for Rangers
SCOTLAND newcomer Oli McBurnie has revealed it’s his ambition to one day play for Rangers. The 21-year-old Swansea City striker was linked with loan interest from Ibrox at the end of the January transfer window before moving to Barnsley. Six goals for the English Championship club have since boosted his hopes of a first senior cap in Friday evening’s friendly with Costa Rica. While happy in his current surroundings, the Leeds-born player still harbours a desire to turn out for his boyhood heroes in the future. ‘Growing up supporting a team, especially a team like Rangers, one day I would love
to pull on the jersey,’ he said. ‘We’ll just have to see how my career goes and see if I am lucky enough to pull it on. ‘There were murmurs (on deadline day in January) but I got told about three o’clock that nothing was going to happen and I had a certain amount of clubs to pick from. I ended up choosing Barnsley and it’s going well for me at the minute.’ McBurnie gained his love of Rangers from father Neil and doesn’t attempt to conceal that allegiance on social media. ‘It helps that I’m in a different country,’ he smiled. ‘If I was playing in Scotland, I don’t think I would be able to get away with it. ‘You get a bit of stick for it, but it is what it is. There are photos of me going into school in my Rangers tops and Scotland tops. ‘You always support who your old man supports, don’t you? We have been to a few games, a couple of Old Firms. I was trying to get to the one the other week but we had a game on the Tuesday, so we were training on the Sunday. ‘Growing up, Kris Boyd and Nikica Jelavic were my heroes as Rangers strikers. ‘Jelavic was the one I loved and I remember being gutted when he left to go to Everton. ‘There have been some ridiculously good players at Rangers over the years, but those were the ones I looked up to.’