Scott Allan still asks himself if he should have taken the doctor’s advice and hung up his boots years ago.
Diagnosed with a heart condition at the age of 29 he entered a state of denial, battling his way back to play for Hibs and Inverness before spending some time going through the motions in front of small crowds at Arbroath.
There was a loan spell with Larne in Northern Ireland and a season in League One with Kelty Hearts and only now can he can own up to the blunt truth. He’d known all along that the game was up. Playing football never felt the same again.
“I was determined that heart issue wasn’t going to be the final word for me,’ he tells Herald Sport over coffee in the Hampden cafe. “But looking back now I wonder sometimes if I should just have come out at that time.
“I don’t think I really enjoyed football after that, if I’m totally honest.
“But you grow up and there’s a competitor in you and when somebody tells you something you want to say, ‘no’”
In September 2020 Professor Sanjay Sharma, one of the world’s leading cardiologists diagnosed the then Hibs midfielder with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, a condition which thickens the walls of the heart and restricts the flow of blood. A contributory factor in the deaths of Motherwell midfielder Phil O'Donnell in 2007 and Cameroon international Marc-Vivien Foe in 2003, both lost their lives during matches. Fabrice Muamba's cardiac arrest at White Hart Lane in 2012 was another close run thing.
“He advised me to stop playing,” Allan recalls now. “The news came at the worst time for me and was hard to accept. But we had come back for pre-season and I felt really breathless with dizzy spells.”
Withdrawn from a game against Aberdeen breathless and exhausted after 53 minutes the former Celtic midfielder had coped with the effects of Type One diabetes for most of his life. Instinctively, he knew this was different.
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Referred to Hampden for heart screening the results prompted a visit to University Hospital Lewisham where Professor Sharma delivered the news which changed his outlook. The people who paid his wages began to view him differently as well.
“I took a year out the game and after that the narrative around me changed.”
He returned after 146 days for Hibs’ 3-0 Betfred Cup semi-final defeat against St Johnstone at Hampden. Where his passing ability and creativity had been the selling point for clubs in the past, they had insurance premiums and medical bills to think of now.
“I think by then the senior management at Hibs were a bit like….we’d better get him out the building.
“Doing that would give them one less problem. I definitely felt that at the time.
“Clubs became a bit wary of the health conditions, which I understand. And, looking back, I probably didn’t enjoy my football after that.”
Herald Sport reminds him of a text message seeking an interview after his move to Gayfield. Unusually, there was no response and he remembers finding it hard to speak about the sudden, unexpected decline in his fortunes.
“I probably felt in my head that once I went to Arbroath that it was pretty much it.
“Trying to motivate yourself when there’s not a lot of people in the ground there isn’t easy.
“I kind of knew that I was coming to the end and maybe then it would have been the right decision to say, ‘enough.’
“Then again, if you do that you might have regrets and, when I look back now, I met some really good people.”
He moved to Larne in Northern Ireland and grew close to Kieran Lynch, the title winning coach linked with the St [[Johnstone]] job. Lasts summer he dipped his toe into coaching, taking up a dual player role at Kelty Hearts under Michael Tidser. Tidser left for Dunfermline, he broke his wrist and it began to feel as if the footballing gods were ringing the bell for last orders.
Announcing his retirement from playing last week he’ll join Mick Kennedy and Si Ferry at East Kilbride, newly promoted to the senior ranks from League Two. He plans to dovetail coaching with media work for Clyde Super Scoreboard and BBC Scotland while looking after a new baby. For the first time in living memory the Allan family took a holiday in July.
Punditry offers no guarantee of the kind of adulation he enjoyed during three spells at Hibs. Walking the tightrope between honest analysis and upsetting old friends in the game is tricky and, when he gets the balance wrong, he’ll deal with the flak because he’s used to it.
“If people want to have a go at me as a pundit I’m used to that.
“When I joined Celtic I grew used to being slaughtered anyway. Every time I left the house I was getting it.”
In 2015 Allan, a boyhood Rangers fan, moved to Parkhead after Hibs refused to sell him to their then-Championship rivals. Some took the news a little better than others.
“I’d drive to training and I’d be getting grief at the traffic lights or a look of disgust in the supermarket.
“That gives you a thick skin. You become immune to it after a while.
“Is it normal to reach a point where you just take it? Maybe not.
“But listen, that’s the life I chose. And I was grateful for every day I played the game.
“I grew up supporting Rangers, absolutely. But you have to think as a professional.
“And when you look at the health challenges I’ve faced along the way I can be proud of what I did because I know some amazing footballers who didn’t have the career I had.”
The challenges began when diabetes became an issue while coming through the ranks at Dundee United. Condemned to a life of syringes and eating at certain times of the day life became easier when he moved to [[Celtic]] and became one of the trailblazers for Free Style Libre, a sensor system which allows diabetics to track their glucose levels without the need for finger prick tests.
“Danny McGrain was the only player I knew of at that time who had diabetes. He was a man I looked up to so much. I’d go into Lennoxtown in the morning and he’d be on a treadmill keeping fit.
“I’ve no idea what age he was at that time but we had a natural bond because of the diabetes. And I’d go and make sure Danny had checked his blood sugars.
“I actually remember his daughter messaging me once thanking me for getting in her dad’s ear about fitting the sensor.
“I’m not sure that the diabetes ever held me back, but it had its challenges.
“If your blood sugars were high during the night you would be fatigued the next day.
“That’s probably why Jack Ross used to take me off after 60 minutes at Hibs all the time….”
Even now dextrose tablets and digestive biscuits are a permanent, monotonous feature of his life.
“I had to take those everywhere with me from the age of three. Just in case I went hypo.
“I still have them, they’re in my car actually. But you get to a stage where you can’t even look at digestives any longer….
“I’ve had 30 years of digestives and you get your fill after a while.”
His playing career finally over, the 33-year-old Scott Allan wishes he’d listened more when he was younger. An early protégé at [[Dundee]] United he joined West Bromwich Albion too soon. When Roy Hodgson then left for the England job, Steve Clarke was his replacement and Allan owns up to making bad choices. A move to Crystal Palace collapsed on deadline day after chairman Jeremy Peace moved the goalposts and, when he returned to the WBA reserve team, he threw the toys from the pram. Upbeat and likeable, he tries, now, to dwell on the good bit and park the regrets.
“I would drive Nicholas Anelka to training at West Brom and when I think back to that, it’s nuts.
“He’d say to me, “I’m going to tell Steve Clarke to play you…
“That didn’t work out obviously, but experiences like that are great things to pass on to my son Zac.
“He’s a left-footed version of me. He’s a killer pass type of player and gets up and down and up and down….’”
Six years later, Allan is still remembered for a pass he made at Ibrox. A sublime through ball sent Daryl Horgan through on goal for the only Hibs goal in a 6-1 thrashing for the slightest of consolations.
“I still get a lot of stick for that and the fact folk still flag it up,’ he laughs.
“But Steven Gerrard spoke about it in his post-match interview and at the time he was somebody I idolised from my playing days.
“The one thing I will say… I played better during my career.”
As a coach at East Kilbride he’ll make the transition from thinking only of himself to improving others.
On Thursday he conducted the draw for the KDM Evolution Trophy at the National Stadium. Revamped to complement the new SFA Cooperation System, ten Premiership B teams will take part and, as Dundee United swell the number of different nationalities in the Tannadice dressing room to 17, he wonder if he’d have got a game in the Tannadice first team these days.
“The number of Scots coming through to play first team football now is disappointing, there’s no getting away from that.
“I never looked past playing for United’s first team.
“These days the mindset of kids is completely different.
“At 16 now they’re told, ‘you’ll get a move here or there…
“All I ever thought at that age was, ‘can I get into United’s first team and get my name on the back of a top with a Clydesdale Bank badge on the sleeve?’ That was all I wanted.
“Now it’s totally different. So much emerging talent goes straight down south now without playing a first team game.”
He has high hopes for East Kilbride prospects like John Robertson and Jack Healy and plans to use his new role as a learning ground for striking out on his own in future.
“I’d like to manage one day but I need to do the work first. I need to make my mistakes and be around people like Mick Kennedy and Si Ferry who can show me a thing or two.
“East Kilbride is an exciting project. Everyone is on the same sheet over where they want to take the club.
“If I was starting out again as a player and you asked me to go and play for any team outwith the Premiership then – in terms of style – it’s a no brainer. My answer would be East Kilbride.”
