That’s a First – Former Celtic player in Ibrox dugout tonight as Rangers manager | OneFootball

A little bit of Ibrox history will be made this evening, when a former Celtic player will be in the Ibrox dugout as the Rangers manager…

Ibrox – theRangers v Celtic, 4 May 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

It’s Glasgow Derby Night under the lights at Ibrox as theRangers host Celtic in an intriguing encounter with a little piece of football history thrown in to boot.

The former Celtic player who is now theRangers manager

In the home dugout this evening will be Leanne Crichton, who replaced Jo Potter in the summer. You will probably know Leanne better as the BBC Sportscene pundit but there’s another interesting wee fact about her that ‘s worth a mention and may be of interest to any football anoraks reading this.

BARCELONA, SPAIN – OCTOBER 17: Leanne Crichton of Glasgow City is challenged by Vicky Losada of Barcelona during the UEFA Women’s Champions League Round of 16 1st Leg match between Barcelona and Glasgow City at the Mini Estadi on October 17, 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

The excellent Alison McConnell, writing in the Herald this morning, carried features on both managers, theRangers boss Crichton and Elena Sadiku, the Celtic FC Women Head Coach. Both well worth a read ahead of the game.

Alison in her Rangers manager piece, listed Crichton’s former clubs as Hibs, Notts County, Glasgow City and Motherwell and she also states that Leanne Crichton did not have an opportunity to play in this derby fixture.

However, The Celtic Star has had it confirmed by reliable sources that this is actually NOT the case because Leanne played over 50 games for CELTIC – including against Rangers – so she does come into tonight’s fixture having experience of playing in the Glasgow Derby FOR Celtic and AGAINST a Rangers.

This from The Celtic Star in December 2021 which has a photograph of Leanne celebrating a League Cup Final win as a Celtic player…

Celtic Women won the League Cup in 2010. Here is a photograph of the winning Celtic team. That winning Celtic team included Gemma Fay, Jo Love, Maddy Fulton, Leanne Crichton, Suzanne Grant, Christie Murray and Amy McDonald. Literally hundreds of international caps in that lot but sadly not while playing for Celtic. Remarkably Glasgow City were actually allowed to cherry pick the best players from Celtic! Read the article HERE.

Celtic FC Women, League Cup winners in 2010.

So playing for Celtic is a curious omission in an article that’s about Leanne being a big Rangers supporter and  her early memories of celebrating the Peter Lovenkrands winner against Celtic in the Scottish Cup Final at Hampden in 2002.

Still not convinced? Well, Leanne’s list of club’s can also be easily be checked on Wikipedia.

Leanne Crichton of Scotland poses in the grounds of the Norton House Hotel after the Scotland Women’s National Team Training Session at Oriam Scotland (Scotland’s National Sports Performance Centre) on June 4, 2019. (Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)

So this will therefore mean that for the first time ever this evening a former CELTIC player will be  in the home dugout as manager of theRangers in a game against Celtic!

There’s a first time for everything I suppose. Best of luck to Elena and her team. The game is live on Sky Sports and this is certainly a little bit of trivia that may interest the commentary team.

COYGIG!

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Order Celtic in the Thirties by Matt Corr (Vol 1 & 2) at Celticstarbooks.com

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