Scottish legend reveals he turned down West Ham move
Over the years West Ham United have been linked with plenty of players, and countless moves that seemed done have fallen by the wayside.
That’s just the nature of transfer dealings, and it’s the same for every club. The list of near-misses is huge for everyone.
We’ve all heard the stories of how Arsenal under Arsene Wenger almost signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo and Yaya Toure.
It now appears that one of the players West Ham missed out on over the years – and he’s not quite in the above sort of class – was Scottish legend Kenny Miller.
That’s according to the man himself, who recently announced his retirement from the professional game. Apparently he had an offer to join the Hammers when he left Hibernian in 2000, but opted to make the switch to Ibrox instead.
“I grew up a Rangers fan,” he said, as per the Glasgow Evening Times. “My cousin was a season ticket holder and he brought me through to a few games. My dad was a Rangers fan.
“I was on holiday at the time and I’d left my phone on the bar. When I came back I had 30-odd missed calls from my mum, my dad and my agent. I thought, ‘What’s happening here?’
“Hibs had accepted a bid from Rangers and I think there was a bid from West Ham on the table as well. I met Alex [McLeish] at Gatwick Airport and he said, ‘This is what’s on the table, what do you want to do?’ I said I wanted to go to Rangers. He said that was fine.
“I think there was a good bit more money on the table from West Ham. When he told me the way the bids were structured, it was a good bit less from Rangers. My dad was buzzing. We grew up as Rangers fans… it was an absolute dream.”
Would Miller have been good for West Ham?
He probably would have been alright, yeah. However, he’s not the kind of missed opportunity that you regret for years and years after.
Miller was a good striker, but nothing revelatory. He only spent one season at Rangers in that first spell, before joining Wolverhampton Wanderers.
He did well there, grabbing 52 goals in 172 games but, again, he wasn’t spectacular by any means.
The 40-year-old was probably never an elite Premier League calibre frontman, but he would have been a useful addition at the time.
In other West Ham news, a veteran Hammers star has admitted that this season will be his last in English football.