Lewis Morgan Opens Up on Rangers Season-Ticket Past Before Celtic Move
Lewis Morgan said he was a Rangers season-ticket holder his whole life before Celtic signed him in January 2018. He did not hide how awkward that looked in Glasgow, but he said football made the decision simpler than the rivalry around it.
“Yeah, obviously pretty controversial. I mean, I was never going to come out and lie and say, 'Oh, I supported Celtic,'” Morgan said. “Scotland's a goldfish bowl. I would have been outed in five minutes if I said that.”
Morgan and Celtic in January 2018
Morgan had come through the Rangers academy and wanted to break through there, but he was unable to do so. Before Celtic came calling, he put together an explosive breakout year at St Mirren, and that run opened the door to the move that followed in January 2018.
He said that switch came down to work, not theatre. “I feel like when you're a footballer, it's obviously completely different. Your job every day is to try and do the best for the club that is employing you,” he said. “That's really how I thought about it from a football development standpoint and playing.”
Rangers leanings in Glasgow
The cross-club path is unusual, but Morgan is not the only player with Ibrox leanings who later wore Celtic colors. Sir Kenny Dalglish and Danny McGrain had those leanings before becoming Celtic icons, while Neil McCann and Mo Johnston ended up in title-winning Rangers teams.
That leaves Morgan in a familiar Glasgow pattern with an unfamiliar twist: he was a self-confessed Gers fan who still joined Celtic after his St Mirren surge. Brendan Rodgers later labelled him the future of the Scottish game, adding weight to the size of the move beyond the rivalry around it.
Brendan Rodgers and the move
Morgan’s own explanation stayed consistent throughout. “When I was younger, I came through the Rangers academy and obviously wanted to break through there and wasn't able to do so,” he said. “But I was a season ticket holder my whole life. Then it's just trying to separate football from the team you support, to you've actually got a job to do.”
For a player who grew up on one side of the Glasgow divide and signed for the other in January 2018, the practical answer was straightforward: he treated the transfer as a career step and his job as the priority. The unusual part was never the move itself, but how openly he described the support that came before it.
