Greg Stewart has opened up on discreetly joining Rangers while still turning out for rivals Aberdeen.
The attacking midfielder was on loan at the Dons from Birmingham City during the second half of the 2018/19 season for his second spell at the club.
The former Dundee man was at Kilmarnock for the first section of that campaign and was nothing short of sensational under Steve Clarke. But Derek McInnes managed to swoop in January to take the forward back to Pittodrie after the Blues recalled him from Killie.
Stewart had only been back at Aberdeen for a matter of months before it became apparent that his boyhood club wanted to sign him. A pre-contract was put on the table by Steven Gerrard in March and Stewart gladly signed. He would go on to spend two seasons at the club, winning the title in his last.
However, in a candid interview with the Scots Abroad Pod, the Mumbai City star claimed how he, McInnes and Rangers had to keep the deal under wraps due to the intense nature of the rivalry. Stewart couldn't even tell his own mum, as he spoke of how he broke down in tears informing his dad.
"I was in the last six months of my deal at Birmingham, so I played in January, February and I think at the start of March we played Rangers at Pittodrie," the 33-year-old recalled. "I ran riot that game. I was playing against Borna [Barisic]. Basically, Borna got me a move to Rangers.
"I said that to him when I signed, 'Cheers mate you got me a move here'. It was just a bit of banter.
"I'll always remember it. At Aberdeen, you had to go to the stadium to get changed before you'd travel to the training ground.
"I went to the stadium one day and Derek pulled me into his office. I thought I'd done something wrong. He said, 'Do you know something that I don't know?'. I was oblivious, I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Derek and I have got the same agent. I genuinely didn't know anything about it. We'd played Rangers and I did really well, it was a couple of days later.
"He thought I knew before somebody told him, that Rangers had been in contact, but I actually knew nothing. I didn't have a clue.
"Obviously the rivalry between Aberdeen and Rangers, Derek had said we need to keep this quiet. He told me he needed to be honest with me because of how big a Rangers fan I am. He said, 'Rangers have been on the phone, they want to sign you on a pre-contract'. He told me he'd love to keep me at Aberdeen but that it wasn't even a discussion anymore.
"He then said that he wasn't sure how we're going to go about it though because if the news came out then the Aberdeen fans would hate me. I was in total shock, I didn't know what to say.
"The meeting finished, and I was still in shock. 'Rangers want to sign me, Steven Gerrard, the team that I love, is this happening?'.
"I phoned my agent and he said the ball was rolling and that he didn't want to tell me because he wanted Derek to speak to me first because that's how it should work out of respect. I think Rangers went about it in the right way."
He continued: "Then I remember phoning my dad. I was trying to tell him but I just burst out crying. 'Is this real,' I was in shock. I couldn't tell anyone because of Aberdeen vs Rangers, we had to keep it quiet.
"I remember I went to meet Steven Gerrard and Mark Allen at the time. We got the deal done and I had signed the paperwork off, but obviously we were going to keep it until the summer. I signed it and they put it in a drawer away. The deal was done in early March.
"I couldn't tell anybody. Imagine me, I'm Rangers-daft, from March and the season doesn't finish until the end of May. The only people who knew were my dad, my wife and my uncle, we're really close.
"I couldn't even tell my mum because I knew if I told my mum then every c*** is going to know."
