There are many great Neil Lennon storys around from his time as a player and manager, but few were as entertaining as the one he told to an Irish audience at an Off The Ball live event Vicar Street last year, where he was joined by Graeme Souness.
After Souness explained that his first wife, and second wife (who he was celebrating a 24th wedding anniversary with in Dublin) were both Catholics, thus meaning he would not have had a problem with signing a Catholic to play for Rangers while he was there, Lennon was inspired to tell his tale, and we're really glad he did.
It turns out that due to a family member who played for the club, Lennon's fiancé's family was full of massive Rangers fans, and they were not delighted to see a bleached-blonde Lennon pull up in their driveway.
When I was at Celtic, the woman that I'm with now, my fiancé, her name is McCloy.
Peter McCloy was a goalkeeper for Rangers for a long long time, and she's a relative of Peter McCloy. So all of her family were Rangers daft, her father, the brothers... So you can imagine the first day, she's bringing me down to meet the family.
They live in this little council estate just like we all grew up in whether it be Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, wherever, and the window was open.
So I pull up in a big fancy car, as you do because I've earned a few quid, she gets out and then I get out and I've got the peroxide blonde hair...
And all I can hear from the window is... "Oh for fucks sake! Anybody but him!"
Brilliant.
Lennon was great value for a laugh all night, but when asked if he could choose now to play for the Republic over the North, he was serious when he said that he would. Interesting.
Neil Lennon asked, if he had the choice now, would he choose ROI over NI? His response: "Yeah". #OTBVicarSt
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) June 1, 2016
Another great road show from Off The Ball, you can listen to it in full on Newstalk.com
