Andy Halliday, the 34-year-old Scottish born midfielder, has led quite an eventful life of footballing mediocrity that most of us ordinary chaps only dream of as we nurse our pints and watch from the couch. Standing at a modest 5ft 8in (1.73m) and weighing just over 10 stone (67kg), Halliday epitomises the professional journeyman, bouncing from club to club around the UK football scene. Whether it's quality or luck we're unsure, but Halliday has managed to wear the coveted number 11 jersey at Motherwell. His current market value, I am informed by Transfermarkt, hovers around the area of £126,000. A solid figure for an equally solid player you might jest.
Let's wind the clock back to 2007, when Halliday joined Livingston as a trainee. He played for Livingston for three seasons, netting 14 goals in a total of 46 appearances before a thrilling £84,000 transfer to Middlesbrough in May 2010, swapping the glamorous Scottish Premiership for the heady heights of the English Championship.
From Middlesbrough, his career took a turbulent, yet monotonously predictable path to Walsall on loan, then back to Middlesbrough. Then on a whirlwind tour of English football that saw him loaned to Blackpool. Twice. Subsequently, Halliday transferred to Bradford City, securing a decent £84,000 in 2014.
For reasons that I'm sure made sense to him, Halliday returned to Scotland in 2015, signing for Rangers in the Scottish Premiership. He played with varying degrees of success, measurable in his 107 appearances and 10 goals over five seasons. In a peculiar sidestep, he was loaned out to the exotic Qəbələ in the Azerbaijani Premyer Liqası for six months in 2017, returning to continue his professional tour of Scotland's football clubs with stints at Hearts, then Motherwell.
Currently, Halliday can be found playing for Motherwell in Scotland, providing his customary average performances with two appearances this year. Fans of the League Cup will be thrilled to note he has made five appearances this season, three of them as a substitute.
In short, the Andy Halliday story: a narrative so steeped in ordinariness it threatens to be compelling.
