SINCLAIR SHOULD ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED AS CLASS ACT

SOME of the highs you experience as a professional footballer can be spectacular. But, by the same token, the lows can be excruciating. Listening to Scott Sinclair’s comments over the weekend in an interview with the BBC, I couldn’t help but feel a degree of sympathy for him. Sinclair explained how he was left to train with the reserves at Celtic during his final few months at the club after falling out of favour. This was a guy who was the best player in the country just a couple of years previously after sweeping the board in terms of the various Player of the Year awards. To then be left out in the cold like a bit of an outcast after giving so much to the club is hard to take mentally. I’ve been in those shoes. Sinclair’s situation was similar to how my final few months unfolded under Brendan Rodgers. I wanted to get myself fit because I was told the door would never be closed. But, in your heart of hearts, you know the writing’s on the wall when you’re left to train with the reserves. It’s tough to take. It’s a dark side of football that fans maybe don’t see. Without any real logical reason or explanation, you end up feeling like an outcast. It feels like a fall from grace. You go from feeling like you’re on Everest as one of the best players in the country, to then being stuck in a hole and almost being shipped out the back door. During that first season under Rodgers, there were times when myself, Efe Ambrose, Emilio Izaguirre and Nadir

Ciftci would be left to do our own thing. We were kept away from the first team and left to do individual sessions with a fitness coach. In terms of ball work, we were training with the kids. Nothing makes you feel more of an old sod than when you find yourself having a kickabout with young lads born in the 2000s. I was almost old enough to be their dad! Sinclair spoke well. He could have stuck the knife into Celtic, but he didn’t. He’s a class act, an Invincible, and should be remembered fondly by the club.