Twenty years on John Hartson hasn’t forgotten his fabled Ibrox medical.
Despite a summer signing spree that brought Kenny Miller, Peter Lovenkrands, Allan Johnson, Bert Konterman and Fernando Ricksen to Ibrox, Dave Murray watched in dismay as Celtic hammered Dick Advocaat’s superstars 6-2 at the end of August.
Murray reacted the only way that he knew- reach for the cheque book and delve further into the overdraft.
Within a week of losing to Celtic Hartson and Ronald de Boer were on their way to Ibrox. One of them signed on with the enticement of disguised remuneration through a so-called EBT, the other returned to Coventry after ‘failing’ his medical.
In an A to Z feature in The Sun Hartson bluntly answered:
IBROX. What kind of Rangers player would you have been?
Listen, I would have signed for Rangers without question. I had no allegiance to Celtic at that stage. But I failed four medicals in my career and that was the best one. My feeling was that Rangers treated me unfairly. They waved a contract under my nose, took me to Ibrox where I was pictured, and then whipped it away again. Their mistake.
De Boer scored 32 goals in 91 SPL appearances at Ibrox. A year later Hartson joined Celtic for £6m from Coventry, scoring 88 SPL goals in 146 appearances.
Despite the result of his Ibrox medical Hartson scored 19 goals in 39 matches for Coventry and Wales in the 2000/01 season.