Telegraph/Roddy Forsyth
Celtic striker Gary Hooper snubbed English top flight to move to Scottish Premier League
Goals against Rangers took Gary Hooper to the hearts of Celtic fans but on Tuesday the striker made a bid for their minds with a dainty little statement of the club’s importance in the scheme of things.
The 23 year-old, who will play against Inverness Caley Thistle in Wednesday’s postponed Scottish Cup quarter-final tie in the Highland capital, disclosed that he could have gone from Sc**thorpe to the Premier League south of the border but that a visit to Glasgow had settled the matter beyond question.
“As soon as I heard about Celtic being interested in me my mind was made up. I knew how big the club was but when I came up I realised they were bigger than I thought,” said Hooper who, with 15 goals to his credit this season, had been called up by Stuart Pearce to the England under-21 squad for the European Championship games against Denmark and Iceland.
“There were a couple of little Premier League clubs interested – Blackpools and that – but they’re not going to be challenging for the title, are they?
“Celtic are challenging for the title and that’s what I want. I didn’t want to go anywhere else.”
Had he known about Alan Thompson’s experience as a Celtic player, Hooper might have had second thoughts.
The Celtic first team coach was virtually ignored by Sven-Goran Eriksson when he operated in Celtic’s midfield under Martin O’Neill, despite the fact that England were notably short of left-sided players, and the Swede did not deny that in his view Thompson had put himself at a disadvantage by earning his living in Scotland.
By contrast, Hooper’s swift exploitation of the opportunities created for him by a steadily improving Celtic side under Neil Lennon, in his first season as manager, has put him in the frame for full international recognition.
The Loughton-born forward qualifies for England’s under-21 side because he was eligible by age at the start of their European championship campaign.
Only a couple of weeks ago, mind you, it had seemed that Hooper might be eligible to wear dark blue because his grandfather had lived in the Scottish borders, but it turned out that his forebear had, in fact, been born in Berwick-upon-Tweed, as the Celtic management swiftly informed Pearce.
“I wasn’t thinking about playing international football,” said Hooper. “I was just coming up to play for Celtic and playing for England is a bonus.
“It’s great to be called up and I’m looking forward to it. I thought I’d come up here and take a year to settle down and find my feet.
“I didn’t think it would come this early. I’m just focusing on tomorrow night at Inverness and then the game against Rangers on Sunday and then going off with the under-21s, but it’s massive, a big tournament."
Asked if Lennon had set an England call-up as a target, Hooper replied: “Not when I first came up. He just said ‘score me the goals and we’ll be up the top’ but then a few weeks ago he said I’d be looking good for England and he spoke to Stuart Pearce."
The manager has also allowed Hooper to grow into his role organically, as it were, rather than force him into a new mould. “He’s just said, ‘enjoy it – just play like I’ve seen you play for Sc**thorpe’. He just told me to put the ball in the back of the net,” said Hooper.
“He said, ‘you do it in training, just play a lot of football and do it in the games.’
“I feel sharper – the training we do up here is sharper. I have more creative players around me, creating the goals and that’s the main thing – if you have good players behind you and you can finish, you can score goals.”
Meanwhile, the postponement of Wednesday’s tie from Sunday, when the Inverness pitch was waterlogged, has allowed Jonny Hayes and Aaron Doran the chance to play against Celtic.
Injuries kept the pair out of Caley’s win over Motherwell in the previous game missed but the postponement of the cup tie has brought them into the reckoning.
Caley’s manager, Terry Butcher, has held up Ross County’s victory over Celtic in last season’s Scottish Cup semi final as an example of what is possible for his players. “You have only got to look across the water towards Dingwall and Ross County’s fantastic run last season,” said Butcher.
“It certainly helped them financially and from a football point of view, it lifted them right up. We want to replicate that and go one better but we have to beat Celtic.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/celtic/8384355/Celtic-striker-Gary-Hooper-snubbed-English-top-flight-to-move-to-Scottish-Premier-League.html
1 million supposedly offered , maybe we should have offered this!