The former international midfielder spent four years at Parkhead, winning three league titles
Celtic players training in 2014 .
Joe Ledley revealed how Ally McCoist scouted him at Cardiff City before he joined Celtic.
And the former Wales international admitted he missed the fixtures against the Light Blues when they dropped out of the top flight.
Ledley joined the Hoops on a free transfer from Cardiff City in 2010 but said: “I played in the Algarve Cup one year, in pre-season, for Cardiff and I think I scored against Celtic to win it. I remember Ally McCoist was there with a few Rangers people, and they actually spoke to my agent first. That was just a brief thing though and they never followed up on it – I just know they were interested in signing me.
“And then before I signed for Celtic, I actually spoke with Tony Pulis about joining Stoke, but he wanted me to play at left-back for him, which I just didn’t want to do – I always saw myself as a midfielder.
“And then I know West Brom were interested too, but when Lenny [Neil Lennon] gave me a call and flew me and my family up to Celtic. I had a look around the stadium and spoke to the manager, and he explained what the club was about, what he wanted to achieve, and obviously the Champions League football was a massive draw for me.
“He went through every single detail with me and was just spot on, without lying to me or trying to oversell anything. He knew exactly what I needed to hear, and I’d say signing for him was the best decision I made in my life. It was the best club I’ve ever played for.
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“It was hard for me to leave my boyhood club, who I’d achieved so much with, but my contract was up and I just knew it was the right time for me to move on. I needed a new challenge, and I needed to be in a new city.”
Ledley, who earlier this week touted his old international team-mate Craig Bellamy for the Celtic job, lost the title to Rangers on the last day during his first season.
He missed a damaging midweek defeat to Inverness Caley Thistle due to injury and opened up on the pain of watching from a distance as they lost in the Highlands.
The former midfielder, though, loved the Old Firm rivalry and missed it when Rangers were sent to Scottish football’s bottom tier. He told Ladbrokes at the launch of Ladisfaction: “In my first season with Celtic, we missed out on the league by one point – and I can remember watching the game which ended up costing us… I was out injured with Gary Hooper, so we were at his house watching us at Inverness away.
“We lost on that day, having been top of the league, and I just knew once we dropped points there, that it was going to be so difficult to go on and win the league. We played some unbelievable football that season, too, and we still went on to win every game after Inverness, but it just left us short. You know, you’re going into the final game of the season, just hoping for Rangers to drop points, but it never happened.
“That was a devastating end to the season for me. You sign for Celtic because you want to win trophies, and you’re expected to win trophies. The only thing I would say is that it does make you hungrier to go again the next season, when you miss out like that.
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“And we were able to go and win the league with ease in the following season, which was the best feeling I’d ever had in football. But when you’re on the other side of it, when you’re losing out on the title to Rangers, or even if you lose an Old Firm game, you don’t want to leave the house for a good few days until things have calmed down.
“You just feel like you’ve let the whole fanbase down. You just want to hibernate. I’ve got to say though, in all of my time up there with Celtic, the fans were brilliant – even when we missed out on the league in my first season, they appreciated the football we played that year, and we probably deserved to win the league overall, just on the way we played. But it doesn’t make it any easier; you go away on holiday in the summer and try to switch off, but your brain is always going 100 miles an hour, and you’re wondering what you could have done differently.
“Then you have that period where Rangers were out of the division, and you’re going into each season knowing more or less that you were going to win the league, which obviously made it a lot easier for us. Don’t get me wrong, though, I definitely missed playing in those Old Firm games… they’re a huge part of the reason you sign for a club like Celtic, because the rivalry between those two sides is incredible – it’s the best derby in Europe, for me. I loved playing in those big games against Rangers, but deep down I think it was nice in a way that we knew we were going to win the league every single year.”
