The tales of Scottish football's wild wanderer: Rangers bus drivers, from Celtic to Israel and Lewis Capaldi
Sitting in the main stand of football grounds for longer than he would have preferred over the last few years has meant Cillian Sheridan is more than qualified to give an opinion on one of football’s current hot topics.
A popular guest on those (too-rare) occasions he is invited to sit on the Sportscene sofa, once when wearing a red roll neck jumper decorated with fir trees and stars, Sheridan shouldn't just be for Christmas. It seems prudent to glean his views on an issue recently raised by Brendan Rodgers that some football supporters have become somewhat over-entitled and quick to criticise. Ange Postecoglou, meanwhile, used words such as "vile" and "detestable" to describe what a section of Tamworth fans were aiming at him in the recent FA Cup fixture v Spurs.
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Hide Ad“I feel that ever since Covid everyone’s fans are brutal,” says Sheridan. “It is not just what is aimed at me. I am seeing it because of being at games watching, where it is not aimed at me. I think fans now go to games hoping to have a moan.”
Now with Brechin City and adapting to part-time football for the first time in his career, the Perth-based Sheridan has time to join his old Celtic pal Aiden McGeady around the country at matches.
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“He has been going to different games for different clubs to watch players,” he says. "St Johnstone games, Dundee games....Because I know him I go along with him. Some of the stuff people are shouting….I am convinced they are going wanting to be annoyed. St Johnstone have not had a great season but it really can translate on to the pitch, it can seep into the players…”
At least Brechin City fans, edges softened by such a bucolic setting, are a nice lot. “So far,” he smiles. “Things are going well, that helps.”
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Hide AdNever mind the home supporters, it’s the away throng that ought to be hailing Sheridan on Friday evening as Highland League leaders Brechin host Hearts in the opening tie of the fourth round of the Scottish Cup. It’s one of the most attractive fixtures of all the fixtures and there will be a healthy following from Edinburgh for the visitors’ first competitive trip to Glebe Park since a Skol Cup clash in 1992.
More than a few will recall that despite never playing for Hearts, Sheridan donated the cost of a couple of season tickets during the club’s administration troubles 13 years ago amid speculation linking him with a move to Gorgie. In fact, Sheridan came closer to joining Hibs after scoring for them in a trial match against East Fife in 2011 during Colin Calderwood’s time in charge. He opted to join St Johnstone on loan from Bulgarian club CSKA Sofia instead.
Rejecting Hibs and helping Hearts should see Sheridan escape the brickbats on Friday evening but who knows? He got it in the neck from Fraserburgh fans recently and he can’t see any reason for them having any beef with him. Rangers? Perhaps that’s another story although Sheridan, despite having been at Celtic for several years early in his career, doesn’t recall any issues of note with them either. There was, though, a more recent contretemps with the blue side of Glasgow while at Dundee, with one upshot being he is now understandably wary of bus drivers.
Rangers were at Dens Park and although he was injured, something Sheridan laments was the case for much of his Dundee career, he went to the game to support his teammates. “To get a head start and beat the traffic I decided I’d leave at half time,” he recalls. “I thought: ‘That will be a good time, there will be no one about’. I was walking down to the car park, and as I was leaving Dens the security guard asked, 'Are you OK walking down on your own?' I told him it should be fine as there was one about. He said he's go with me, 'just in case'. And we were walking down to the car park on the street where all the supporters’ buses park up and I started getting loads of abuse from the bus drivers! I couldn’t believe it! Stuff like: ‘You're not even good enough to make it onto the bench!’ Cursing me out and trying to have a go at the security guy, ‘Oh big guy with the security badge ….’ When I got to the car park I realised I was blocked in! Ended up having to wait until the game finished anyway!”
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Hide AdHe knows some Dundee fans might have a dim view of him due to an incident that occurred during a match against Ross County three years ago. Sheridan, who sports a lush mane of hair he recently informed an admirer on X was down to “shampoo and confidence”, had replaced Jason Cummings with Dundee already 4-0 down in the eventual 5-0 home defeat. Already on a hiding to nothing, he managed to lose his hair bobble in an aerial clash that at least earned a foul for his team.


“It was a midweek match under the floodlights," he recalls. "As soon as it happened, I was like, ‘Oh no, I am in trouble here, I am not going to find it!’ So I straightaway went to the bench – it happened near the bench. I think I asked someone to run in to get my toilet bag – I keep a spare one in there. And then (substitute goalkeeper) Ian Lawlor said he had one round his wrist - from his girlfriend! He said: ‘Here, quick, take this!’
"So it took about ten seconds …but rather than wait, Charlie Adam had taken a quick free kick. I didn’t go off the pitch or anything, I literally grabbed the bobble off Ian and went to run into the box….”
However, it later came out – and an Irish newspaper made a big deal of it – that Sheridan had been off the pitch fixing his hair while Dundee were lobbing a ball into the box in a desperate attempt to get back into the game. The backlash was harsh and in some places unedifying.
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Hide Ad“It was almost like that was why we lost 5-0!” exclaims Sheridan. “That was the midweek game on the Wednesday. I then started the (1-0 win) v St Mirren on the Saturday, had a good game, but got injured…I remember thinking afterwards, ‘At least I got to put something right’, rather than if I got injured in training and that – the Hair Bobble Incident - was the Dundee fans’ last memory of me, which for some people it probably still is!”
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He recounts all this with an endearing self-deprecation that helps make his social media output – “for booking contact Father McGuire,” advises his X profile - required reading. There’s also the podcast he hosts with Lewis Capaldi that isn’t actually a podcast with Lewis Capaldi because Lewis Capaldi hasn’t been on it – yet.
He tends to interview the likes of comedians and musicians, which gives a clue to his general mindset. "The Sheriff Show with Lewis Capaldi" is currently in abeyance because it was proving such a hassle to pin down guests although it is set to come back for one very special episode. “It became a chore,” he says. “I will only do one more if I can get Lewis Capaldi on it. Then I will finish. Go out with a bang.”
It could happen – they have mutual friends in common and he has met him, when Radio 1’s Big Weekend came to Dundee and Niall Horan was on the bill. “I am friends with guys around him (Horan)," explains Sheridan. "I was queuing up at the bar and Lewis was there, reaching over for some drinks. ‘Big man, big man!’ he said. I go over and shake his hand and said: ‘I’m Cillian Sheridan and welcome to the Sheriff Show with Lewis Capaldi’, which is my intro. I knew he knew about it and thought it was funny.”


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Hide AdFollowers of Sheridan on X are likewise entertained. A recent post riffs on that classic RTE moment when they identified pundit Richie Sadler’s main claim to football fame as “scored in a Uefa European U-18 third place play off”.
Sheridan’s Sportscene equivalent a couple of weekends ago was “25 goals in 105 top-flight appearances for Celtic, Motherwell, St Johnstone, Killie and Dundee”, which the player himself happily posted a screenshot of alongside the Sadler meme.
He clearly thinks it’s nothing to shout about but one goal every four or so matches – a record that is maintained when the well-travelled footballer’s adventures at other clubs are taken into account, including in Cyprus, Israel and New Zealand – is still pretty good, particularly when many of the appearances were from the bench or sometimes while carrying an injury.
He recalls turning up to sign for Polish club Wisla Plock with a heavily bruised ankle from his final appearance for Ironi Kiryat Shmona in Israel the previous day and being anxious to avoid a full medical. It turned out he had suffered ligament damage but then Covid arrived, which was fortunate in one way since it meant there was sufficient time for the ankle to heal.
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Hide AdIt did, to a remarkable extent. “When I went in for my first Achilles surgery (at Dundee), the surgeon wanted an X-ray of the ankle and foot so they didn't discover down the line there was something else wrong," he says. "He came in and said: ‘I have never seen a footballer with an ankle like this!’ And I was like, Oh god, I don’t have a ligament or something! And he says, ‘It looks like you have never played a day’s football in your life! Your ankle is in perfect condition.’”
He wonders if that really was a compliment. Sheridan did fear he might have come to the end of the line as a footballer last summer. It was slightly dismaying since he felt he had played some of the best football of his career at Queen’s Park last season, where he signed a short-term deal following a frustrating spell at Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
This Highlands posting meant coming face to face with Duncan Ferguson – or not as the case may be. “Height-wise we are not too far off each other,” says Sheridan, who Wikipedia claims is 6ft 5in (he's not). “But you feel tiny beside him. He towers over you. I remember when I first went up, someone mentioned that when he shakes your hand he will stare into you, so I was prepared for it. I tried to stay big. He got closer and asserted his dominance over me! I don’t have any bad feeling towards him other than I did not get much of a chance. He will probably say it's because I was rubbish!”
Sheridan credits Ferguson with getting him fit again, which stood the striker in good stead at Queen’s Park. He scored four goals in 12 games to maintain – indeed improve - that more than decent strike-average but no-one discussed staying on with him, so he knew what to expect.
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Hide Ad“I thought coming into the summer I'd be desirable as a free agent,” he says. “I thought I could go abroad again, a bit of sun or something….” Cue a social media post from deepest, darkest Angus saying, “Welcome to Brechin City, @CillianSheridan.” What happened to that sun? “Offers did come in. But nothing that made me jump,” he says.


“I thought I would have more Championship offers here, but no, nothing. I thought that is where I should be playing in my head.” His age – 36 next month - was counting against him. He hadn’t planned on the Highland League but someone with such a rich and varied CV was not about to be put off by the prospect of trips to Deveronvale and Buckie. He was rather charmed if it meant continuing a journey that’s now taken him from Bailieborough, the town north of Dublin where he grew up, to Brechin, via myriad stops in between.
Next on the itinerary is a return to the Scottish Cup, which is how it started for him at senior level for Celtic. He helped ward off the threat of yet another embarrassment at the hands of Inverness. The then 18-year-old came on at 1-0 down and contributed to a 2-1 win, which was secured in the last minute through a Kenny Miller goal he set up. “I went home last weekend and saw my jersey from that season,” he says. “It was massive! It still is massive. The kit man gave me an XL and stuff back then was baggy anyway.”
The shirts have since shrunk to fit the player is something you can imagine him quipping, in that wry way of his. But having once enjoyed the status of “last Irishman left in the Champions League,” as he himself put it while with Cypriot club APOEL Nicosia, Sheridan continues finding new frontiers to explore.
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