Hardman Vinnie Jones nearly went to Hibs

VINNIE Jones has revealed he almost signed for Hibs. In a Radio 5 Live interview this week, following his third-place finish in Celebrity Big Brother behind the ghosts of Katie Price past and present, the former Wimbledon hardman-turned 'actor' indulged in some rubbishing of Scottish football, asking why it was included in the sports news bulletins when "no-one cared".

"We used to tell the goalkeepers if they had a bad game we'd sell them to a Scottish club," chortled the former Wales captain.

When this provoked a predictably terse barrage of text messages, Jones was asked by the host Richard Bacon to assure the audience he was only joking, Jones said: "Yeah, I almost went up there in fact. Hibernian, when Alex McLeish was the manager..."

Although the tale took a bizarre twist when Vinnie added: "...or was it Willie McFaul?"

Unlikely, considering that McFaul was the manager of Newcastle around the time Vinnie was infamously grabbing a young Gazza by the family jewels.

We'll assume that it was Big Eck who was interested in bringing Jones "north of the haggis line" and wince at the thought of a Vinnie-Yogi centre-back partnership.