Not to get too philosophical about it, but you don’t sign for the same club three times without there being something to it beyond the natural ebb and flow of a football career.
Scott Allan didn’t begin his professional journey at Hibs, nor will he end it there, but above anywhere else his journey has taken him, things just seemed to click at Easter Road. More than enough evidence exists to prove that talent alone doesn’t guarantee admiration in this part of the world, so, again, there must be something that draws someone back over and over. Allan has that talent, no doubt, but it seems the real secret was that Hibs supporters demanded from him what he needed to thrive, and those intangible factors fed off each other.
The demand was to provide moments to justify the price of admission, and Allan always felt he was at his best when the pressure was on to produce them.
Contributing in the big games
“First and foremost, I think the Hibs fanbase took to players like myself,” explains the 32-year-old, who has just about recovered from a weekend of title celebrations in Northern Ireland with NIFL champions Larne, whom he joined on loan earlier this season. “When the Hibs supporters turn up on a Saturday, they want to see guys who will get them off their seats, and I think I managed to do that.
“Especially in the bigger games. I felt I always contributed against the likes of Hearts and Rangers, and that’s what gets you the backing of the fans. That’s what they’re looking for – can you affect the big games? I did that at Hibs.
“Because of the type of player Hibs have had through their history, guys who make things happen. Ask anybody and they’ll say that’s what they go to games for, whether it’s a goal, a pass, a tackle.
“With the Hibs fans, I could give two or three passes away and it wouldn’t be moans and groans. They maybe thought, ‘If he gets one, it could win the game’, and when you have that connection where they have trust in you, it brings out the best in you. I had that trust from the managers as well, but that always comes from doing the business on the park.”
The big moments aren’t difficult to recall. The half-volley against Hearts at Easter Road. Two assists in Hibs’ last win at Tynecastle - and another pair in the famous 4-0 drubbing of Rangers. A goal in the infamous, bonkers, ludicrous, end-of-season 5-5 draw with the same team, to name just a few. Above pretty much everything else, contributions of that kind – the ones that spark outright bedlam in the stands – are the ones supporters hold closest to their hearts.
The right blend in midfield
“On the bigger occasions, I think about seven times out of 10 I would have an impact on it, whether it was creating or just not hiding and being brave on the ball,” says Allan. “People talk about ‘being brave’ in terms of flying into tackles, but for me it was taking the ball under pressure and trying to put a calmness into the team. If you can show composure in the big moments, that plays a big part in those games.
“Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of good players around me, which gives you the recipe to go and do well. I could rhyme off so many. Under Alan Stubbs, we had guys like Scott Robertson and Liam Craig, they might not be the players who make the big passes, but the work they did behind me allowed me to go and have the freedom to be creative.”
The Edinburgh derby triumphs, of course, stick out for Allan, not least the victory that followed the Craig Levein-fuelled ‘natural order’ furore. “It’s fair to say we were charged up for that one,” he laughs, but the Hibs teams he played in didn’t require much extra motivation for the big days. It’s a theme that ran through his first two spells, in a team that was set up to win no matter the opponents. Unsurprisingly, Allan cites the swashbuckling side assembled under Neil Lennon as being a particular thrill to play in, singling out John McGinn and Dylan McGeouch alongside him in midfield.
“We played against Kilmarnock under Lenny just after the split and won 5-3,” he recalls. “I remember either Gary Dicker or Alan Power turning round to me during it and said, ‘What a game this is!’
“You never hear players saying that during games. We were a real attacking side, we went out to win no matter who it was against, and that’s when you really felt the belief from the fans and manager. Then a few weeks later we had the 5-5 against Rangers…”
'We were trying to score every time we got the ball'
No game sums up what Allan describes quite like those 90 minutes of pure chaos at Easter Road in 2018. Defending wasn’t so much an afterthought as a total non-consideration that afternoon but it made for the one all-time great days of entertainment in Scottish football – and one of its most memorable celebrations. From being 3-0 up, Hibs collapsed into a 5-3 deficit before rallying to a draw that felt like so much more.
“The funny thing is,” says Allan. “After we went 3-0 up, if we’d chilled out a bit and just kept the ball we might’ve got a fourth or fifth. But we were trying to score every time we got the ball, and maybe left ourselves wide open at the back and Rangers punished us.
“To come back and get the point in the end… I know it was a draw but as a spectacle that’s what football’s all about, isn’t it? Five goals each, the sun’s out, last game of the season with both teams going for it, managers doing mad celebrations, it doesn’t get any better.
“We had big Efe [Ambrose] trying to dribble through the whole Rangers team from the back, I remember that. He was amazing. That was just us, though – can we score with every attack? I think Lenny was doing the aeroplane in Edinburgh that night. It’s just one of those iconic moments. He might’ve got a bit of stick for it after the game but I wasn’t going to be the one to give him it, he was quite an intimidating character at times!”
Allan speaks fondly of each Hibs manager he played under. There were four in total, albeit he spent only a brief period working with Paul Heckingbottom, nor did he feature with any regularity in Shaun Maloney’s short tenure. Naturally, then, it’s Stubbs, Lennon and Jack Ross who stick out, yet for different reasons. Stubbs provided Allan with the platform to rediscover himself after a nomadic and unfulfilling few years in England, Lennon brought the best out of him by putting, as he describes it, ‘an onus’ on him to make things happen, and Ross was there to offer unwavering support when he was diagnosed with a heart condition in 2020.
Transfer tug-of-war
That life-changing discovery, initially kept under wraps until the full picture became clear, was not the only test he endured at Hibs but he found himself hardened to the speculation that followed his mysterious disappearance from the public eye by what had come before. In 2015, Allan was at the centre of a tabloid’s dream, embroiled in a ‘transfer tug-of-war’ between Celtic and Rangers. Eager to progress his career despite knowing the backlash it would bring, the midfielder handed in a transfer request with a move to Ibrox seemingly inevitable - only for Celtic to arrive on the scene and change his mind. At just 24 years of age, Allan had been around the football block, but never before had he been thrust into the media glare with such intensity, and he confesses to finding it difficult.
“It was unsettling,” he says. “I’d only come back up from England the year before and then that came about. It was a strange one because I was so settled at Hibs. But when there are clubs that size interested, you do get swayed, especially being from Glasgow.
“It got really tough. The toughest thing was leaving Hibs, to be honest, because I was settled and felt we were going places. On the flip side, if I hadn’t left, Liam Henderson wouldn’t have gone the other way and swung in those two corners in the Scottish Cup final! The Hibs fans eventually forgave me.
“When I went back, we played Rangers at Ibrox, I won a penalty, we won 2-1, and all was forgiven! In those moments, it’s very hard to make the right decision in football. With hindsight, you believe you’re good enough to go and play anywhere, and that’s the thing that can make you successful.
“There are so many factors that play into it, and whether you can be successful at certain clubs. I watched Jadon Sancho in the Champions League semi-final the other night and he was one of the best players on the park. He’s had Manchester United fans saying, ‘He’s not good enough’! There are so many factors that come into whether you’re successful at certain clubs.”
Career fears over heart issue diagnosis
Hindsight must be an especially wonderful thing if, like Allan, you suddenly find yourself facing the very real prospect of a career being cut painfully short. That was his reality when weeks of unexplained fatigue in 2020 led to doctors discovering he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes thickening of the heart walls and restricts blood flow around the body. The condition was a contributory factor in the on-pitch deaths of Marc Vivien-Foé in 2003, and Phil O’Donnell in 2007.
Allan had already been living with type 1 diabetes for several years, and his sudden withdrawal from first-team football created a swell of speculation that could have proved overwhelming had he not already been desensitised by previous, uncertain spells in the limelight.
“It was hard, but by that time I had already been through so many things where there was lots of speculation, I think I got numb to it,” he says. “You can only affect what you can affect, and for me then it was about doing all the testing and just trying to get back playing.
“When I did come back, there was maybe about five months of the season to go, and I came back the following pre-season and started well, got really fit, but then I found myself out of the team.
“Even after that, I felt like I still contributed a lot of assists considering the minutes I played. I was actually really happy with that season considering the length of time I was out, and with people wondering if I was going to do this or that.
“It was a tough year, personally, because it’s obviously not good being told you have a heart condition along with already having diabetes, but I did still come up with moments in that season that got us over the line.”
Catching the coaching bug from Jack Ross
Ross was Hibs manager when Allan received his diagnosis, and his handling of a delicate situation played no small part in ensuring a friendship enduring long after they parted ways from Edinburgh.
“Jack was amazing with me through that time,” Allan says. “I still speak to him to this day. He kept me busy - I went and watched games and it was maybe part of the reason I started thinking about coaching - I got a lot of information from Jack.
“On a personal level, he did anything he could do – and John Potter, as well, you couldn’t ask for a better guy. Jack and John were, first and foremost if you take away anything football-related, on a personal level they were excellent with me. That was a big thing.”
From Arbroath to Larne and what comes next
Allan left Hibs in the summer of 2022, and regular minutes on the pitch have been hard to come by since. Despite being fit to play, he started the following season without a club, and expressed concern in a BBC column that his heart condition had put an ‘asterisk’ next to his name. Arbroath offered him a deal in late August, but he made only 16 appearances across the entire campaign in the second tier.
It felt like time for a change, and last summer he ferried across the Irish Sea to join NIFL Premiership champions Larne on loan. Allan has been unavailable for much of 2023/24, but has nonetheless enjoyed experiencing something different. He featured enough to pick up a league winner’s medal as Larne secured a second consecutive title last weekend, with his son in attendance to see him score in a 5-0 win over Coleraine.
“It was the first game he had had come over,” says Allan. “And you know what kids are like – they never ask about stuff like passes you make, it’s, ‘How many goals have you scored?’ It’s not as if I’ve been prolific in my career, so it was good to get one in front of him!”
His contract at Arbroath is up this summer but Allan wants to keep playing - he’s already had offers - while pursuing coaching qualifications and dabbling in punditry. He’s currently working towards a UEFA B license and has appeared on BBC Scotland and Sky Sports with increasing frequency. With all the highs, lows, and lessons his career has served him, it’s little wonder Allan feels well-equipped to pass on his knowledge.
“I feel, personally, that I’ve got a lot to give back to kids coming through,” he says. “Especially with my journey in football; the ups and downs, the way I played, and also things that maybe stopped me getting in teams at times. I think I’ve got a lot of information I can give through that experience.”
'Whether I made the right moves is probably up for debate'
A pre-phone call, Google-assisted catch-up on Allan’s year in Northern Ireland throws up an interview from January where he says outright that he ‘probably hasn’t been the same player’ since the cardiomyopathy arose. I ask Allan about this, and whether he feels he’s been robbed of precious years at the top, but there is not even a hint of bitterness in his answer.
“I don’t know if that [not being the same player] was maybe a subconscious thing because of the diagnosis,” he says. “The season before, it was probably my best season for goals and assists – I was in double figures for both – and then, ‘Boom’, that happens. That was the hard thing, I still felt as though my best years were ahead of me. In terms of thinking, ‘Am I the same player?’, it can be hard to tell because I’ve not played 20-30 games in a season.
“I train as hard everybody else, my numbers are the same as everybody else. On the surface, I’m still really fit, but it’s just getting that run of games. Whether I made the right moves after it happened is probably up for debate. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever run about thinking of it when I’m playing football. When you step on the field, it’s still just a game of football like it’s always been since I was a kid.
“You do appreciate the good moments more. People always ask me, ‘Do you regret this or that?’ I don’t have any regrets in football. I’ve managed to make some amazing memories, all while dealing with type 1 diabetes and cardiomyopathy.”
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