Kevin Thomson: I've never lost my love for Hibs

LET'S get one thing straight - Kevin Thomson didn't have to do this interview. He's back up in Edinburgh - where he still has a house in the west of the city - taking a summer breather from life at Middlesbrough and, from trying to arrange a meeting, it becomes evident that he's a busy man.

He could easily have opted to spend this early summer afternoon with the family - Calley, whom he married just a few weeks ago, and 16-month-old Jackson, who has been causing chaos in the Thomson household. He could have been keeping himself ticking over in the gym, or playing golf with best pal Scott Brown or indulging in one of his favourite pastimes - watching horse-racing. In short, he could have made up any excuse he wanted to avoid spending an afternoon talking about Hibs, the club some would have you believe he cut all emotional ties with the moment he made his lucrative move to Rangers some four and a half years ago. But it says much for what the Easter Road club still means to the affable Boro midfielder that he went out of his way to share a coffee with the Evening News when invited to reminisce about his days with the club he followed as a kid. The three hours in the company of the 26-year-old Peebles boy, who has gone on to become one of Hibs' most successful exponents of recent times, were nothing short of fascinating.

Having been away from Rangers for a year now, he seemed genuinely enthused when given the chance to recall a period in his life which, despite the bitter ending, clearly made a lasting impression on him. Let's start at the beginning when a 14-year-old Thomson thought about jacking in football altogether after he earned a move to Coventry City following fruitful spells with Peebles Thistle Boys Club and then Hutchison Vale. "Things didn't work out for me at Coventry," he recalls. "I felt I had a real chance to make it, but I hated it. It was such a hard environment for a young boy being away from home.

"My heart was set on coming back up the road and I clashed with my parents because they knew the size of opportunity I was giving up. They just wanted the best for me and my dad thought I was mickeying out of it, but I was demented down there. When I came back up the road I'd lost my love for the game and felt being around my mates was more important. I had three or four months when I wasn't interested in football."

As one of Scotland's brightest prospects pondered turning his back on the game, it was a spell playing for Peebles Under-16s which partly restored his appetite. "I enjoyed the freedom of playing with my mates with no pressure," he says.

"At that point I wasn't interested in being a professional footballer."

There was only one club which could have tempted him back into the big time. "I got a call from Hibs asking me to go through to Edinburgh, and to be honest it didn't float my boat at first as I was content playing for my local team. But because it was Hibs, and me and my dad had always been Hibbies, I thought I might as well go up and have a look. When I went up with my dad there were umpteen boys I'd played with at Hutchie who had joined Hibs and it suddenly felt right. I agreed to sign and after a couple of training sessions it just felt so much better than being at Coventry - I felt happy."

After spending a couple of years in what Thomson describes as "one massive boys' club" it was time for this emerging talent to step up and join the big boys. November 1, 2003: Grant Brebner fails a fitness test ahead of an SPL match against Dundee at Dens Park and Thomson is told by manager Bobby Williamson over lunch to prepare for his debut.

"I was over the moon," he says. "I went out and phoned my dad and he was straight in the car and up to Dundee. I was a bit lucky on my debut because Dundee had Craig Burley sent off early on so it meant I got to play against ten men for about 80 minutes. I got loads of time on the ball and it felt as if everything went through me that day which did wonders for my confidence. We drew 1-1 and I then went on to play about 28 consecutive games that season.

"I kept fearing I was going to fall out the team but I was getting stronger every week and the manager kept faith in me. Bobby deserves a lot more credit than he got. I'll never forget the influence he had on my career. He had the likes of me, Scottie (Brown), Deek (Riordan), Gaz (O'Connor), Steven Whittaker, Ian Murray and Gary Caldwell in the team at a young age, so I think some people forget how much of an influence he had on the team that did so well a few years later. Tony Mowbray took us to the next level, but I'm pretty sure if Bobby had us a few years longer he'd have had us playing a similar way."

And what of the Mowbray years (2004-06) - the era of funky hairdos and young cavaliers intent on ripping up the fields of the SPL? "Mogga was a breath of fresh air," says Thomson, who is now reunited with the Englishman at Boro. "He was fortunate that he inherited a group of young players who wanted to play the same way he did - it was a proper match made in heaven. We finished third, got plenty plaudits and I think even the Old Firm would admit they knew they were in a game whenever they played us.

"There were times when we went through to Glasgow and they couldn't get the ball off us. We had a belief that we could beat anybody but our naivety and immaturity cost us a lot of games. In my opinion, any time we lost a game to a team like Dunfermline or Dundee United, we were always far superior. I remember a game at Aberdeen where we played almost the entire game in their half and made something incredible like 1000 passes, but ended up drawing. That was kind of the story of those two years. In some ways we were a bit like Arsenal in that we could pass teams to death and end up not getting the results we felt we deserved. You could see in our opponents' faces that they hated playing against us. The group we had was pretty breathtaking but we were probably missing a top keeper and that wee bit grit that all of us have added since moving on to bigger clubs. I'm pretty sure we'd have that dirty side if we were all reunited now. In fact I don't think we'd be far off winning the SPL."

In summer 2006, Mowbray made Thomson the happiest boy on the planet. "When Mogga first told me he was thinking of making me captain, it gave me goose pimples. I've never had a problem getting my words out but I was almost tongue-tied at that moment - it was fantastic. I was like a wee boy. I've played in the UEFA Cup final, I've won leagues and cups, I've played in the Champions League, but the day I walked out and first skippered Hibs was as proud a day as I'll ever have in football."

Then Thomson's love affair with Hibs turned sour as a desire to take his career to the next level allied to a character clash with Mowbray's successor, John Collins, eventually culminated in an acrimonious exit to Rangers in January 2007. "John Collins coming in was a bad part of my career - we never got on basically," he says. "We had a decent relationship to start with but as soon as me and Scottie hired a new agent (Willie McKay] it deteriorated. We didn't hire him to get us a move there and then - it was just preparing for the future because we felt he would be able to open doors for us as we were getting to the stage where we were starting to think about our next move.

"I was enjoying being captain of Hibs and in no rush to leave but the manager started treating me and Broonie differently and we were arguing with him every other day. I accepted that he wanted to keep me to benefit the team but I didn't feel there was any need for him to start subbing me at half-time and taking the captain's armband off me. I went from being a fans' favourite to a hate figure in no time at all. The only reason I asked to leave at the time I did was because of the way he was treating me. I said if you're not going to play me, I'd rather go. Looking back it was all pretty childish from both of us."

Upon making his life-changing move to Rangers, Thomson was roundly derided by the Hibs faithful for selling his soul to the devil. However, while acknowledging their reasons for feeling betrayed, Thomson insists supporters need to understand that footballers are like everyone else in the sense that when money talks, you've got to listen. "Fans will only have read bits and pieces about what went on, so I understand why a lot of them dislike me. If I was a Hibs fan paying my money and a player signed for Rangers I would want them to fail as well, so I totally understand the fans' point of view. But I think all fans need to realise that in any walk of life if you can get ten times your salary elsewhere, then there's no way you'll stay where you are.

"The argument that a footballer shouldn't be influenced by money is just stupid. If you are offered better money and better opportunities elsewhere, why are you going to stay at a club just because you support them? I know there's a lot of Hibs fans that would say they'd play for Hibs for nothing, but let's not beat about the bush - for footballers it's a job first and foremost. Nid (Ian Murray] did the same thing and he's a Hibs fan so what I did was not as bad as some people would have you believe. I played in a UEFA Cup final, won leagues and cups and played in the Champions League, so how can anyone argue that it wasn't a good move for me? It was good for Hibs as well, as I cost the club nothing and then they got a big transfer fee (2million] for me. "What we had at Hibs was never going to last forever. Players outgrow clubs all the time - Christophe Berra and Craig Gordon outgrew Hearts, Alan Hutton outgrew Rangers. For any player at Hibs or Hearts, their goal should be to go to the Old Firm or to England and, likewise, when you've had a shot at the Old Firm, you then think about going down south. If you've no desire to go from Hibs to a bigger club and then another bigger club, what's the point of playing football?

"I loved Hibs. I always gave 110 per cent. I was as proud as I could ever be when I became captain. But I knew Hibs could never offer the opportunities I'd be able to get elsewhere and it just reached the stage where I needed to move to take my career to the next stage."

His burgeoning talent and ambition to be the best may have left him with no option but to flee the nest, but, like it or not, this amiable Borderer will always have Hibs in his heart.