Jonny Hayes has been officially unveiled as a Celtic player, and in his first interview with Celtic TV, he revealed that he has a personal relationship with Brendan Rodgers that goes back to before he had kicked a ball as a professional.
Widely regarded as one of the best players outside of Celtic in the league, if not the best, last season, the Irishman left Aberdeen with a heavy heart, but he was desperate to join his boyhood club Celtic as soon as he learned of their concrete interest.
Hayes even had his heart set on joining Celtic as a 15-year-old and it was Rodgers who convinced him to instead join him at Reading, as the Ireland international revealed's Rodgers' attention to detail and personality won him over.
? @jonnyhayes7 speaks to @gerrymcculloch1 in his first interview for #CelticTV! #HayesisaCelt pic.twitter.com/XiqDg9toZQ
— Celtic TV (@CelticTV) June 19, 2017
Going back to when I was a 15-year old, he brought me over on trial at Reading, and I wasn't too keen on going to be honest , I'd actually set my mind to coming to Celtic when I was a kid.
So Brendan's influence took me to Reading, and I was there for six days, as soon as I landed back in Dublin I told my dad that I wanted to go to Reading. Just purely because of him.
I think everyone at Celtic knows how he works now, he's always been like that, attention to every little detail. There's a story about when I came on trial to Reading.. Brendan was wearing a certain aftershave, and it smelled nice. I made just a quick mention of it, and then three of four months later I was over at Reading, it was my 16th birthday and he brought me up to meet the family, had a cake in his house, all stuff like that.
When we went back and he dropped me down to my digs, he gave me a present, and it was a bottle of this aftershave.
Something like that, it's just the measure of the man.
Outstanding.
You really do get the impression when you hear from players that played under Rodgers that he genuinely cares about them as people as well as footballers, which is why he holds such a good relationship with the likes of Luis Suarez to this day, and was a big factor behind Scott Sinclair heading north of the border last summer.
We're looking forward to seeing how Hayes gets on at Celtic, but thankfully it seems as though he's already in the new gaffer's good books.
