DANIEL CUMMINGS is heading off to London with stars in his eyes.
The teenage striker has been spirited away out of Celtic on a paltry £250,000 development fee and is ready to play his part for Graham Potter’s West Ham.
Brendan Rodgers had genuine hopes of Cummings stepping up at Scotland’s title kings in the forthcoming season after giving the prospect a high-profile debut in the Champions League encounter against Aston Villa in the Midlands in February.
Alas, it was not to be a memorable first appearance as the 19-year-old forward replaced Adam Idah with just 10 minutes to play and the visitors trailing 3-2.
CUMMINGS AND GOING…the teenage Celt is on his way to West Ham.
Not long after he stepped onto the pitch, some dreadful slack play from Dane Murray, who had also been a late introduction to proceedings, gifted the hosts the killer fourth goal.
Cummings hardly got a look in. That wasn’t the kid’s fault with his team-mates all over the place and little evidence of cohesive play, but it’s likely to be the closest he will ever get to a kick of the ball while wearing a Celtic strip.
Of course, he could do a ‘Charlie Nicholas’ and leave the Hoops for England’s capital – in Charlie’s case Arsenal – and return via Aberdeen seven years later.
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
There is a procession of tales of streets paved with false gold – and equally false hopes – as starlets leave for the bright lights of London, ‘the world’s biggest ashtray,’ according to a newspaper pal of mine who has worked for a national journal in the city for decades.
The list of miserable failure is a lengthy and depressing one.
For instance, would Cummings even have hesitated if someone had reminded him of a Tommy Burns protege, a precocious teenager by the name of Islam Feruz?
NOW YOU SEE ME…a rare glimpse of Islam Feruz in a Celtic shirt before his shift to Chelsea in 2011.
A lively and alert forward, he walked out on Celtic at the age of 16 to join Chelsea in September 2011 after six years of mentoring at Parkhead.
Feruz was born in Somalia and raised in Glasgow after his family arrived on these shores. He was living in a high rise in the Glasgow housing scheme of Castlemilk when Burns took a personal interest in his well-being and oversaw the family’s flit to more spacious accommodation near the city centre.
No amount of pleading by the club legend could dissuade the teenager from packing his bags.
It probably wasn’t too long before Feruz reflected on the old adage of ‘acting in haste and regretting at leisure’.
He never got near the first team at Stamford Bridge and his career stalled fairly spectacularly across the border.
There were temporary transfers to OFI Crete – where he played twice – Blackpool, Swindon Town and Hibs as his career hurtled unerringly in the direction of a brick wall.
Feruz got the boot from Chelsea on the last day of the 2018/19 season.
The one-time wonderkid quit football at the age of 24 in April 2020.
Cummings would be well advised to take heed of the red flags.
ALEX GORDON
