Hibs: Sean O'Hanlon ready to follow Weir's way to success

Now the 28-year-old is hoping to bring the same sort of experience to Colin Calderwood's young squad, the old head in a back line which at times boasted an average age of just 20.

Liverpool-born O'Hanlon has supported the Toffees all his life and. although he was at Goodison until the age of 21, he never managed to realise his dream of playing first-team football for his boyhood heroes.

But today O'Hanlon, Calderwood's third signing of the summer following the earlier arrivals of Ivan Sproule and Garry O'Connor, insisted the thrill of training alongside the likes of Weir, Duncan Ferguson, Richard Gough, Paul Gascoigne and David Ginola will never leave him.

He said: "Everton was a great experience. I was training with the first team from the age of 18 so I had a good three seasons with the first team, training with quite a few Scots like Davie, big Dunc and Richard.

"Gazza and Ginola were also there for a while, you learn from them and never forget your time there. Duncan was coming towards the end of his career but he was a good professional, always in the gym keeping fit. Marking him in training you obviously had to keep away from his very sharp elbows!

"David Weir (pictured below] is someone I have admired. I looked up to him when he was at Everton, but I still look up to him now because of the player he is, still going strong. He's a great professional and as a centre-half he did look after me a little bit.

"He would help me out, but he just makes the game look so easy. You've got to watch him and think 'how does he do it?' I'm still working on it. I also remember Richard Gough. He was similar to David, a bit of a freak really the way he was so fit at such an old age. He was great to watch. He'd roll the ball out to the full-back and overlap him and end up on the right wing when you were thinking he should be sitting on the halfway line."

O'Hanlon severed his ties with Everton when the lure of regular first-team football became too much to ignore, the 6ft 3in stopper saying: "It was a big blow as an Everton fan ato leave, but I was 21 and didn't make a first-team appearance. I'd moved to Swindon, initially on loan but we were in the play-offs that year and I signed permanently. I wanted to start playing games and Swindon gave me the chance.Once I got a taste of it I wanted to play week-in, week-out and they offered me that guarantee."

After two-and-a-half years at the Robins, O'Hanlon switched to MK Dons where he remained for five years before the appeal of playing in Scotland's top flight persuaded him to accept Calderwood's offer of a two-year deal.

He said: "For me, the attraction was to play top-flight football. Obviously, Hibs showed an interest and with them being one of the top clubs in the Scottish League it was a decision that was quite easy. I don't know many of the lads up here, I know Graham Stack, and have played against Ivan Sproule once or twice but MK have Peter Leven and Gary MacKenzie, who are Scottish, and Matthias Doumbe, who used to be at Hibs.

"Speaking to them they didn't have a bad word to say about the club and the city. They said I would love it here.

"I want to play in the big games up here, against the likes of Rangers and Celtic so to have Celtic as our first match of the season is great."