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Born: 23 February 1989
Birthplace: Bailieborough, County Cavan, Ireland
Signed: 10 Feb 2006 (youth)
Left: 13 Aug 10 (to CSKA Sofia)
Position: Striker, Centre-forward
Debut: Celtic v Inv Caledonian Scottish Cup, Feb 2007
Squad no.:
Internationals: Rep of Ireland
International Caps: 3
International Goals: 0
Biog
The young lanky (6ft 5″) striker – who represented his county at minor level in Gaelic Football and was given an offer to go to Aussie Rules side Brisbane Lions – made an instant impression with the Bhoys at both under-19 and reserve team level finding the back of the net on a regular basis.
His rapid rise was capped on 25th February 2007 when he came off the bench to make his first team debut as Celtic came from behind to win a Scottish Cup tie at Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
Just days later the young Irishman agreed a new three year contract with the club and in October 2008 he made his Champions League bow as a substitute for Scott McDonald at Manchester United. He made his first start for the Bhoys on November 5th and netted in a 4-2 win over Hibernian.
In early 2009 the Irishman went on loan to Motherwell in a bid to gain experience of regular first-team football and he produced some solid performances for the Fir Park club. In August that year, with Tony Mowbray now installed as Parkhead boss, Sheridan went on loan again – this time to English Championship side Plymouth Argyle. When the Argyle manager was moved upstairs to the boardroom he found himself somewhat out in the cold with new manager Paul Mariner. However, in January 2010 he joined St Johnstone on a loan deal to the end of the 2009/10 season.
Lots of experience, but difficult to convince anyone of his ability it seemed.
In May 2010 Sheridan made his senior international debut for Ireland in a friendly match against Paraguay at the RDS in Dublin. He gained a further 2 caps that summer against Algeria and Argentina.
With opportunities becoming increasingly difficult at Celtic Park, Cillian moved to Bulgaria and signed a 3 year deal with CSKA Sofia in August 2010.
He had overall a good short run with Celtic when given the opportunity but was not seen as likely to make the full claim as a first team regular.
Later moved to Kilmarnock, and now sporting a bearded look, he scored for his club to help them in a 2-0 win against Celtic at Parkhead for the first team in around 55 years, making him popular with the Killie fans. A great victory for them coming only a few days after Celtic had competed gallantly in the Champions League v Barcelona garnering plenty of plaudits.
He was to be quite a traveller: CSKA Sofia (Hungary), Apoel (Cyprus), Omonia (Cyprus), Jagiellonia Bialystok (Poland), Wellignton Phoenix (NZ), Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Israel) and Wisła Płock (Poland). He ended up back in Scotland playing for Dundee, and played in a comprehensive 6-0 defeat by Celtic at Celtic Park in August 2021.
Post-Celtic, apparently he became a bit of a ‘planker’ (i.e. the fitness exercise for the back and stomach muscles):
“Planking is a craze. You take a picture and then stick it on twitter. It had passed me by but when I heard about it in the summer, me and Jody Morris thought we’d take it up. We’ve been doing this everywhere – even on our recent team golf day – and I had been thinking about the plank as a goal celebration.”
To run down his playing career, he later moved to Inverness CT and Queen’s Park, before dropping down to Brechin City in the Highland League.
[TBC].
We wish him the best.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES (subs) |
LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 2006-10 | 6(8) | 0(1) | 0(1) | 1 (2) | 7(12) |
| Goals: | 4 | 0 | 0 | – | 4 |
Honours with Celtic
Scottish Premier League
Scottish Cup
| KDS Honours | ||
| MOTM Winners 2008-09 | ||
| 12-Nov-08 | Celtic 3-0 Killie | SPL |
Pictures
Links
- Sheridan signs for CSKA Sofia (Aug 10)
Articles
Sheridan gets Celtic seal of approval
Irish Examiner, 2007.
Celtic striker Cillian Sheridan showed with one small but important contribution to the Parkhead side’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup comeback against Inverness Caledonian Thistle that the Hoops’ comprehensive scouting system continues to unearth promising youngsters for manager Gordon Strachan.
Sheridan, from Cavan in Ireland, only turned 18 on Friday and few travelling fans at the Tulloch Caledonian stadium would have known anything about him as he replaced Mark Wilson with 16 minutes to go with the visitors trailing to Graham Bayne’s first-half opener.
However, after defender Steven Pressley dramatically levelled the score with an 89th-minute header, the Irishman set up Kenny Miller to score the winner deep into injury time.
Celtic under-19 coach Joe McBride described Sheridan rise through the Parkhead ranks as “spectacular”.
He said: “Cillian’s rise has been spectacular and he has really caught the eye.
“He’s only been at Celtic since last summer. We took him to Villarreal with the youth team just after he came and he did okay but since the league started he has been great.
“He has been scoring all sorts of goals, from blistering shots from outside the box to tap-ins.
“He has improved with every game and even scored two for the reserves when he moved up to play for them against Motherwell.
“Cillian is the one player we have who is similar, in some ways, to Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, that’s perhaps why the manager has taken him.
“I don’t know if we‘ve lost him to the first team now but he can play with the under-19s for another season.
“It’s a double edged-sword, it would be good to keep him for our team but it would be nice to lose him to the first team, that’s what we are here for.”
He said: “He is basically a shy and quiet guy but you could say he is a typical Irishman.
“On one of the bus journeys in Villarreal we tried to get a sing-song going among the boys but no-one would get up. But once Cillian got up, there was no getting him down again.
“I hope he makes it as a footballer because he will never make it as a singer.”
Inverness manager Charlie Christie was still reeling from Celtic’s remarkable comeback.
He said: “We did have some tired legs, maybe because of the possession Celtic had but we defended well and they never looked like getting back. But it just wasn’t to be for us.”
© Irish Examiner, 2007. Thomas Crosbie Media, TCH
The Irish Examiner
St Johnstone goal ace Cillian Sheridan: I’ll give plank celebration the chop
CILLIAN SHERIDAN admits he has been a bit of a planker. It’s not just the oddball goal celebrations produced by the whacky St Johnstone loan star.
dailyrecord
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/st-johnstone-goal-ace-cillian-1082964
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CILLIAN SHERIDAN admits he has been a bit of a planker.
It’s not just the oddball goal celebrations produced by the whacky St Johnstone loan star.
The second-time-around Saint – who opened his Perth account with a double to see off Hearts – believes he has really nailed the moustache look.
After breaking his duck against the Tynecastle side, Sheridan opted for an unusual celebration, sprawling head down on the McDiarmid turf.
The ex-Celt, lured to Perth from Bulgarian outfit CSKA Sofia, explained: “Planking is a craze. You take a picture and then stick it on twitter.
“It had passed me by but when I heard about it in the summer, me and Jody Morris thought we’d take it up.
“We’ve been doing this everywhere – even on our recent team golf day – and I had been thinking about the plank as a goal celebration.
“I didn’t tell anyone because I don’t like preplanning things like that. I just decided to go for it.
“But I’ll not be using it as a celebration again. Once is enough.”
The Republic of Ireland international, who was on trial for Hibs and scored against East Fife in a preseason friendly before clinching a loan move to Saints, lapped up his first goals against Hearts.
He said: “The manager, Derek McInnes, was happy with the way I was playing but strikers want goals.
“Me and Fran Sandaza have had a good few games together now. We know how one another plays now and we’re linking up well.
“We’re not going to play brilliantly and score every week but I owe a lot to the manager for sticking with me through all the games I wasn’t scoring.
“Other managers might not have persisted with me but he said goals would come and they did.”
After seeing off Celtic and Motherwell on the road, Sheridan is hoping to complete a hat-trick of wins against clubs he has been involved with at Easter Road tonight.
He added: “It won’t act as extra motivation but it would certainly be nice to get another good away win.
“I was only at Hibs for about 10 days on trial. It never came to the stage where I was offered the chance to sign for them because it was between Sofia and Hibs.
“All I’m thinking about is getting another win for St Johnstone.”
But Sheridan has bemused his McDiarmid team-mates by growing a moustache.
He deadpanned: “Because I’m one of the younger ones in the dressing room I didn’t think I was getting enough respect.
“I thought I would get it with a moustache and I’ve gone for the distinguished look.
“I think it’s worked. The boys are starting to take notice of me. I think it will stay for the Hibs game then I’ll see after that. It’s grown on me.
“In Bulgaria, I got a tattoo of a moustache done on my finger.
“A friend from Ireland and I had it done when he was over in my first couple of months there. It was absolute agony.
“It was just for a laugh, I can hide it when I need to.
“The boys in Bulgaria loved it. I don’t know if they got my sense of humour, though. It was pretty hard to get it through in the translation.”
The tales of Scottish football’s wild wanderer: Rangers bus drivers, from Celtic to Israel and Lewis Capaldi
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/scottish-premiership/latest-premiership-news/the-tales-of-scottish-footballs-wild-wanderer-rangers-bus-drivers-from-celtic-to-israel-and-lewis-capaldi-4947424
Alan Pattullo
By Alan Pattullo
Specialist Sports Writer
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Published 16th Jan 2025, 20:30 GMT
Sheridan’s travels take him to Brechin and a bid to stun Hearts in Scottish Cup
Sitting in the main stand of football grounds for longer than he would have preferred over the last few years has meant Cillian Sheridan is more than qualified to give an opinion on one of football’s current hot topics.
A popular guest on those (too-rare) occasions he is invited to sit on the Sportscene sofa, once when wearing a red roll neck jumper decorated with fir trees and stars, Sheridan shouldn’t just be for Christmas. It seems prudent to glean his views on an issue recently raised by Brendan Rodgers that some football supporters have become somewhat over-entitled and quick to criticise. Ange Postecoglou, meanwhile, used words such as “vile” and “detestable” to describe what a section of Tamworth fans were aiming at him in the recent FA Cup fixture v Spurs.
“I feel that ever since Covid everyone’s fans are brutal,” says Sheridan. “It is not just what is aimed at me. I am seeing it because of being at games watching, where it is not aimed at me. I think fans now go to games hoping to have a moan.”
Now with Brechin City and adapting to part-time football for the first time in his career, the Perth-based Sheridan has time to join his old Celtic pal Aiden McGeady around the country at matches.
“He has been going to different games for different clubs to watch players,” he says. “St Johnstone games, Dundee games….Because I know him I go along with him. Some of the stuff people are shouting….I am convinced they are going wanting to be annoyed. St Johnstone have not had a great season but it really can translate on to the pitch, it can seep into the players…”
At least Brechin City fans, edges softened by such a bucolic setting, are a nice lot. “So far,” he smiles. “Things are going well, that helps.”
Never mind the home supporters, it’s the away throng that ought to be hailing Sheridan on Friday evening as Highland League leaders Brechin host Hearts in the opening tie of the fourth round of the Scottish Cup. It’s one of the most attractive fixtures of all the fixtures and there will be a healthy following from Edinburgh for the visitors’ first competitive trip to Glebe Park since a Skol Cup clash in 1992.
More than a few will recall that despite never playing for Hearts, Sheridan donated the cost of a couple of season tickets during the club’s administration troubles 13 years ago amid speculation linking him with a move to Gorgie. In fact, Sheridan came closer to joining Hibs after scoring for them in a trial match against East Fife in 2011 during Colin Calderwood’s time in charge. He opted to join St Johnstone on loan from Bulgarian club CSKA Sofia instead.
Rejecting Hibs and helping Hearts should see Sheridan escape the brickbats on Friday evening but who knows? He got it in the neck from Fraserburgh fans recently and he can’t see any reason for them having any beef with him. Rangers? Perhaps that’s another story although Sheridan, despite having been at Celtic for several years early in his career, doesn’t recall any issues of note with them either. There was, though, a more recent contretemps with the blue side of Glasgow while at Dundee, with one upshot being he is now understandably wary of bus drivers.
Rangers were at Dens Park and although he was injured, something Sheridan laments was the case for much of his Dundee career, he went to the game to support his teammates. “To get a head start and beat the traffic I decided I’d leave at half time,” he recalls. “I thought: ‘That will be a good time, there will be no one about’. I was walking down to the car park, and as I was leaving Dens the security guard asked, ‘Are you OK walking down on your own?’ I told him it should be fine as there was one about. He said he’s go with me, ‘just in case’. And we were walking down to the car park on the street where all the supporters’ buses park up and I started getting loads of abuse from the bus drivers! I couldn’t believe it! Stuff like: ‘You’re not even good enough to make it onto the bench!’ Cursing me out and trying to have a go at the security guy, ‘Oh big guy with the security badge ….’ When I got to the car park I realised I was blocked in! Ended up having to wait until the game finished anyway!”
He knows some Dundee fans might have a dim view of him due to an incident that occurred during a match against Ross County three years ago. Sheridan, who sports a lush mane of hair he recently informed an admirer on X was down to “shampoo and confidence”, had replaced Jason Cummings with Dundee already 4-0 down in the eventual 5-0 home defeat. Already on a hiding to nothing, he managed to lose his hair bobble in an aerial clash that at least earned a foul for his team.
“It was a midweek match under the floodlights,” he recalls. “As soon as it happened, I was like, ‘Oh no, I am in trouble here, I am not going to find it!’ So I straightaway went to the bench – it happened near the bench. I think I asked someone to run in to get my toilet bag – I keep a spare one in there. And then (substitute goalkeeper) Ian Lawlor said he had one round his wrist – from his girlfriend! He said: ‘Here, quick, take this!’
“So it took about ten seconds …but rather than wait, Charlie Adam had taken a quick free kick. I didn’t go off the pitch or anything, I literally grabbed the bobble off Ian and went to run into the box….”
However, it later came out – and an Irish newspaper made a big deal of it – that Sheridan had been off the pitch fixing his hair while Dundee were lobbing a ball into the box in a desperate attempt to get back into the game. The backlash was harsh and in some places unedifying.
“It was almost like that was why we lost 5-0!” exclaims Sheridan. “That was the midweek game on the Wednesday. I then started the (1-0 win) v St Mirren on the Saturday, had a good game, but got injured…I remember thinking afterwards, ‘At least I got to put something right’, rather than if I got injured in training and that – the Hair Bobble Incident – was the Dundee fans’ last memory of me, which for some people it probably still is!”
—————-
He recounts all this with an endearing self-deprecation that helps make his social media output – “for booking contact Father McGuire,” advises his X profile – required reading. There’s also the podcast he hosts with Lewis Capaldi that isn’t actually a podcast with Lewis Capaldi because Lewis Capaldi hasn’t been on it – yet.
He tends to interview the likes of comedians and musicians, which gives a clue to his general mindset. “The Sheriff Show with Lewis Capaldi” is currently in abeyance because it was proving such a hassle to pin down guests although it is set to come back for one very special episode. “It became a chore,” he says. “I will only do one more if I can get Lewis Capaldi on it. Then I will finish. Go out with a bang.”
It could happen – they have mutual friends in common and he has met him, when Radio 1’s Big Weekend came to Dundee and Niall Horan was on the bill. “I am friends with guys around him (Horan),” explains Sheridan. “I was queuing up at the bar and Lewis was there, reaching over for some drinks. ‘Big man, big man!’ he said. I go over and shake his hand and said: ‘I’m Cillian Sheridan and welcome to the Sheriff Show with Lewis Capaldi’, which is my intro. I knew he knew about it and thought it was funny.”
Followers of Sheridan on X are likewise entertained. A recent post riffs on that classic RTE moment when they identified pundit Richie Sadler’s main claim to football fame as “scored in a Uefa European U-18 third place play off”.
Sheridan’s Sportscene equivalent a couple of weekends ago was “25 goals in 105 top-flight appearances for Celtic, Motherwell, St Johnstone, Killie and Dundee”, which the player himself happily posted a screenshot of alongside the Sadler meme.
He clearly thinks it’s nothing to shout about but one goal every four or so matches – a record that is maintained when the well-travelled footballer’s adventures at other clubs are taken into account, including in Cyprus, Israel and New Zealand – is still pretty good, particularly when many of the appearances were from the bench or sometimes while carrying an injury.
He recalls turning up to sign for Polish club Wisla Plock with a heavily bruised ankle from his final appearance for Ironi Kiryat Shmona in Israel the previous day and being anxious to avoid a full medical. It turned out he had suffered ligament damage but then Covid arrived, which was fortunate in one way since it meant there was sufficient time for the ankle to heal.
It did, to a remarkable extent. “When I went in for my first Achilles surgery (at Dundee), the surgeon wanted an X-ray of the ankle and foot so they didn’t discover down the line there was something else wrong,” he says. “He came in and said: ‘I have never seen a footballer with an ankle like this!’ And I was like, Oh god, I don’t have a ligament or something! And he says, ‘It looks like you have never played a day’s football in your life! Your ankle is in perfect condition.’”
He wonders if that really was a compliment. Sheridan did fear he might have come to the end of the line as a footballer last summer. It was slightly dismaying since he felt he had played some of the best football of his career at Queen’s Park last season, where he signed a short-term deal following a frustrating spell at Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
This Highlands posting meant coming face to face with Duncan Ferguson – or not as the case may be. “Height-wise we are not too far off each other,” says Sheridan, who Wikipedia claims is 6ft 5in (he’s not). “But you feel tiny beside him. He towers over you. I remember when I first went up, someone mentioned that when he shakes your hand he will stare into you, so I was prepared for it. I tried to stay big. He got closer and asserted his dominance over me! I don’t have any bad feeling towards him other than I did not get much of a chance. He will probably say it’s because I was rubbish!”
Sheridan credits Ferguson with getting him fit again, which stood the striker in good stead at Queen’s Park. He scored four goals in 12 games to maintain – indeed improve – that more than decent strike-average but no-one discussed staying on with him, so he knew what to expect.
“I thought coming into the summer I’d be desirable as a free agent,” he says. “I thought I could go abroad again, a bit of sun or something….” Cue a social media post from deepest, darkest Angus saying, “Welcome to Brechin City, @CillianSheridan.” What happened to that sun? “Offers did come in. But nothing that made me jump,” he says.
Cillian Sheridan started his senior career with Celtic.
Cillian Sheridan started his senior career with Celtic. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602
“I thought I would have more Championship offers here, but no, nothing. I thought that is where I should be playing in my head.” His age – 36 next month – was counting against him. He hadn’t planned on the Highland League but someone with such a rich and varied CV was not about to be put off by the prospect of trips to Deveronvale and Buckie. He was rather charmed if it meant continuing a journey that’s now taken him from Bailieborough, the town north of Dublin where he grew up, to Brechin, via myriad stops in between.
Next on the itinerary is a return to the Scottish Cup, which is how it started for him at senior level for Celtic. He helped ward off the threat of yet another embarrassment at the hands of Inverness. The then 18-year-old came on at 1-0 down and contributed to a 2-1 win, which was secured in the last minute through a Kenny Miller goal he set up. “I went home last weekend and saw my jersey from that season,” he says. “It was massive! It still is massive. The kit man gave me an XL and stuff back then was baggy anyway.”
The shirts have since shrunk to fit the player is something you can imagine him quipping, in that wry way of his. But having once enjoyed the status of “last Irishman left in the Champions League,” as he himself put it while with Cypriot club APOEL Nicosia, Sheridan continues finding new frontiers to explore.