Steven Naismith special: An exclusive chat with Kilmarnock's record transfer sale
The club's academy product spoke to the Killie Chronicle in-depth about his career in Ayrshire from start to finish.
Softly spoken and unassuming yet sharp as a tack. I didn’t have long with Steven Naismith when we spoke all things Kilmarnock, but that much of his personality shone through.
Oh, and how could I forget – his undeniable passion, knowledge and sincere emotional attachment to our football club?
My first footballing idol growing up, some of my favourite times as a youngster harp back to watching the diminutive forward, with his beach blonde hair, fearlessly running at defences and scoring lots of goals for the mighty Killie.
The 38-year-old generously gave up some time to take an in-depth look back on his career in blue and white stripes.
In an exclusive sit down with the Killie Chronicle, Naismith candidly opened up on coming through the academy ranks in Ayrshire, being the club’s record transfer sale, leaving on deadline day, just how close he was to rejoining and much more.
It’s soon to be 18 years since Naismith sealed his dream move to Rangers from Kilmarnock. The Ayrshire side earned £2m out of the transaction.
The transfer went through about a year and a half after Kris Boyd followed the same pathway. While that deal wasn’t anywhere near as fruitful for Killie given his contract situation, the mid-2000s proved to be a successful period for the club’s recruitment strategy by selling young talents on for significant sums.
Since Naismith departed, the most notable sale was also worth seven figures. Celtic signed Greg Taylor for an upfront fee of around just £1m in the summer of 2019 as the left-back, in similar circumstances to Naismith, made it clear he wanted to move on.
Despite being a full Scotland international at the time, and having played a crucial role in Killie finishing third in the Scottish Premiership, the club parted ways with Taylor for way under his market value.
And so, Naismith remains the club’s record transfer sale nearly two decades on.
The pacey frontman – who scored 19 goals in the 2006/07 season – is one of, or certainly in the top few, best players to emerge from Killie’s youth system.
“If you look back at it, it was probably all handled in the way it should be done,” Naisy said. “I say that in terms of, for the work Kilmarnock put into me from a 13-year-old to going into the first-team and playing for five years to me getting to progress, it was the way it should’ve been.
“From being young, it goes from playing a sport to it becoming a career. You’ve not experienced handling anything like that in the way I dealt with it at the time.
“I had signed a long-term contract when it wasn’t really in my interest to other than I got a pay rise.
“I signed that in the knowledge the club said they would let me go for X amount. That wasn’t written down, which was naïve of me to accept.
“When it got to the point when that figure was offered and the chairman at the time, Michael Johnston, wanted more and just disregarded any conversations that had happened in the past, that made it incredibly frustrating for me.
“When you’re young, you see you’ve got an opportunity to move to a club that was playing in the Champions League and would present me the chance to win titles, I found it really difficult.
“In the end, it went through and probably the perception is that ‘You’re a bad guy’ to Killie or that I didn’t want to be there. Some of the best memories I’ve got are from Kilmarnock.
“Looking back now, it was brilliant that the club got £2m, brilliant that I got to move, have the career and win the trophies that I did.
“Kilmarnock definitely stays in my heart for what they did for me.”