Moving to Celtic helped Joe Hart feel his love for football again – and they allowed him to bow out of football on his own terms.
That’s something the former Hoops number one is eternally grateful for.
He joined the Glasgow giants under Ange Postecoglou in 2021 having found himself playing a back-up role at Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur the previous seasons.
Hart was once Manchester City’s main man and has 12 trophies to his name throughout a career spanning almost 20 years
But it was moving up north to Celtic that he reckons gave him the unique chance of ending his playing journey on a high.
“It felt right,” he told the High Performance Podcast. “If I look at my career the majority of my career has been as a number one, it’s been playing well, it’s been lifting trophies, so it felt right.
After his final game for Celtic, where he helped lift the Scottish Cup and secure a domestic double, the former England shot-stopper said that he has never felt professionally this special in his entire life.
And the 37-year-old explained just why he made that statement: “So I got to do something really unique because football is a fast business and I decided that I was going to finish.
“I wanted to own the fact that I was going to finish. I told people early, I told a truly special football club that I wanted to finish with them because I loved them more than anything else in football.
“Whether they had anything to offer me, I don’t know. I didn’t have to put those chess moves, I didn’t even want to get into that, and spoke from the heart about something.
“And it might not have gone well, we were probably second in the league when I said it and we had a cup final to play against our greatest rivals. I could’ve walked away plotless in my last season. But I just wanted people to know that even though I was finishing, I wanted to finish strong, and then did finish strong
“I got into a beautiful flow, the team really clicked, Brendan got us playing how he wanted to play, we got who we were and we were starting to really perform.
“The buzz of the club, no matter how many trophies they win, when you are playing well, it’s an absolute buzz. The drums are going, the fans were singing, the flares were going off, and it was just an incredible feeling.
“And then they asked me to do a night with Joe Hart, to which I immediately said, because I said when I wanted to retire that I didn’t want to talk about it, I wanted to do what I need to do, say what I need to say, do the press that day and then we will deal with everything else after the season.
“Because the team comes first, winning the league comes first, and they asked me to do a night with Joe Hart with a month to go and I said ‘No’, and then I said, ‘you know what? scrap that. You were willing to do that for me’ and they were like ‘we would love to do that for you’.
“I said ‘that was amazing, that’s absolutely beautiful. I don’t feel comfortable doing it but I’m going to do it because for you to even come here and ask me to do that is special. Just let me know what I need to do’.
“So we did a night with Joe Hart, it feels weird talking about my name but that’s what it was.”
