Johnston relishes chance of reunion with McCann

If the careers of Johnston and McCann seem like mirror images, then that is apt. Johnston is a year older and Heart of Midlothian’s new signing has been following in those footsteps with near-precision. They were once rivals for the left-wing spot in the Scotland Under-21 side before McCann inherited Johnston’s role at Tynecastle in 1996 after the latter moved to France. Both men made their full Scotland debuts in 1999 and, of course, they played together at Rangers before each moved to the Barclays Premiership.

They even have the same man as their biggest fan, Jim Jefferies, the Kilmarnock manager. Jefferies gave both the platform to become a top-flight player, so it is a appropriate that he is also at Rugby Park today as McCann makes his debut — second time round — for Hearts after joining this week from Southampton.

Johnston, of course, was lured back to the Bank of Scotland Premierleague over a year ago. If McCann flourishes in this familiar environment as much as Johnston, he will be pleased he made the decision to return to Scotland. Johnston’s renaissance at Rugby Park has been one of the heartening stories of this season.

All the skills that were once the trademark of an audacious youngster who earned the nickname “Magic Johnston” when he was with Hearts, are still there. However, they are wrapped up in more complex footballer, one who is using his brain and his experience in his new role as a playmaker, yet who has the lung capacity and lean frame to match any of the Premierleague’s young Turks.

In recent games against Hibernian and Celtic, Johnston has been a revelation. He matched anything Scott Brown could contribute in a recent encounter at Rugby Park and if the teenage Hibernian midfield player — who made his Scotland debut in November at 19 — is deserving of acclaim, then so too does Johnston. It is not outwith the bounds of possibility that the mature version of Magic could conjure up a Scotland recall and earn his nineteenth cap at the age of 32.

“I would still love to be involved with Scotland,” admits Johnston, whose last cap embraced the sort of wrong note that no one would like to bow out of international football on. “It was that 2-2 draw in the Faeroe Isles,” he grimaces, recalling Berti Vogts’s calamitous competitive debut as Scotland manager. “I don’t really want to finish my career on that downer. However, it is not up to me. All I can do is keep playing well with Kilmarnock and see what happens.

“I know there are a lot of quality players now in the Scotland squad, many of who are younger than me. There are also quite a few emerging who have either just got into the squad, like Scott Brown, or who are on the verge, like the other Hibernian lad, Kevin Thomson. However, I feel I have been able to compete in terms of the pace of the game in the Premierleague, which has changed a lot since I first came in.”

Johnston admits it took him a while to get up to speed, literally, with the Premierleague when he returned from Middlesbrough in 2004. A whole crop of fresh young faces, and energetic legs, had changed the tempo of contests. It is something that McCann may feel, even after just three years away at Southampton.

“I am sure Neil will be taken aback, for a while, at the pace games are now played in this league,” Johnston reflects. “However, he is a quality player and a fit one. He will adapt. Neil and I played together at Rangers and for Scotland. We missed each other at Hearts. I left Tynecastle to join Rennes the same summer that he came in. The Hearts fans, though, loved him in his first spell, especially as the side won the Scottish Cup in 1998, and he will be a great favourite again.

“He has not come back to Scotland just to wind down his career. He wants to win things and I am sure he will be a good signing for Hearts. My old club have really impressed me this season. They do not lose many goals because of the solid foundation at the back with Steven Pressley and Andy Webster and the goalkeeper, Craig Gordon, but Neil will add a new dimension up front.”

It was Jefferies who recruited McCann a decade ago at Hearts to fill Johnston’s shoes. He spent £400,000 on the latter, an investment that paid off when McCann was sold in December 1998 to Rangers for £1.9 million. The Kilmarnock manager can also see similarities in the pair’s present football philosophy.

“Players like Neil and Allan have made money out of football but the hunger remains,” Jefferies said. “They’re selfmotivated men and highly influential figures in the dressing-room for players who are making their way in the game. I’ve seen kids who went from £200 a week to £700 lose the place and switch off because they thought they’d made it to the big time. But Neil’s not like that. He was great for dressing-room spirit when he was at Tynecastle.”

Johnson is held in equally high-regard by the Kilmarnock dressing-room, where his age marks him out as a minority species. “I probably have a bit more maturity in my game now,” Johnston acknowledges. “People used to single me out as just a winger. I did not see the ball all the time but that’s because you can be isolated on the touchline. I was working hard.

“I have always been fit but you need to be very fit now to play in the Premierleague. However, I admit that this season is the best I have been for a while. It is a new position, but I am loving it. I think my game is more suited to being in the middle.

“We have a great group of young players. Some, like Kris Boyd, got a lot of attention when he was here. However there are others, like James Fowler and Garry Hay, who are unsung heroes.”

The crop of Rugby Park youngsters gives Johnston a sense of déjà vu. He feels that Kilmarnock possess the raw materials to transform the club’s playing and financial fortunes, just as another of his former clubs did. Johnston only stayed at French club Rennes for one season after leaving Hearts but it made an impression.

“It is still one of the best clubs in France for raising its own youngsters,” he says. “It has a great academy, rated the best in the French league, but the fans know that it will always be a selling club because Rennes is not a major city. However, when I was there, we had Sylvain Wiltord and Mikaël Silvestre who both left the club for big fees and became top stars [at Arsenal and Manchester United, respectively], as did Petr Cech, whom they sold to Chelsea. That could be the way ahead for Kilmarnock. We want to be in the top six this season and maybe get back into Europe.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk