IT is not by accident that one of the most ubiquitous modern-day football chants preaches the merits of having “one of our own”. You won’t have to go far this weekend to find a ground where this little ditty is being belted out in recognition of a homegrown hero lucky enough to live out their dreams playing for the team they love.

A reflection perhaps of so many foreign stars in our game, these boyhood supporters-turned-superstars are singled out for an additional slice of hero status. Kieran Tierney, a Celtic fan all his days, is feted when he sneaks in amongst the away fans. Andy Halliday, another man who wears his heart on his sleeve at Rangers, is adored at Ibrox, while Graeme Shinnie is a local hero up at Aberdeen. Down south, Harry Kane has this chant sung for him at Tottenham Hotspur– even though he might have ended up playing for Arsenal instead if they hadn’t thought Benik Afobe was a better prospect and decided to release him from their Under-nines.

This last example rather illustrates the point, though. Because for the other 99% out there, football is a career, an inexact science and a messy old business where the head usually rules the heart when it comes to deciding your next move on the ladder. Relationships with a certain club or other are more likely to be marriages of convenience or fleeting dalliances rather than life-long romances.

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Kissing the badge can help consummate this relationship but the case of Rodgers proves that this can be playing with fire. Fans frequently have a bunny boiler mentality and often require their heroes to be as impossibly obsessed as they are.

Right now, for instance, Brendan Rodgers is feeling a fearsome backlash for the crime of walking out on Celtic before the mythical ten-in-a-row has been achieved. The sense of betrayal is palpable some fans feel in a man who played up his affection for the club from his upbringing in Carnlough, County Antrim is real enough. It turns out he wasn’t the Messiah after all, just a naughty boy.

Rodgers certainly laid it on thick at times. There was a story, no doubt true, about his uncle Kevin writing to Billy McNeill to suggest that Celtic’s Northern Irish scout Dessy McGuinness should come and have a look at him. While they never did, the family received a lovely letter from McNeill which he cherished.

READ MORE: Celtic captain Scott Brown bears no ill will to the departed Brendan Rodgers

But so what if Rodgers played the game with the media? He never made any guarantees as far as I was concerned about him staying out the duration of his contract to complete the rather abstract challenge of continuing Celtic’s title run into double figures. While I never felt there was huge urgency for him to return south of the border, it always seemed like he was up here as long as it took for a better offer to come along and what is so bad about that? No matter the scale of the club, five years languishing in a league like Scotland is a long time when you have previously been within a heartbeat of the FA Premier League title.

It would be different if Celtic somehow became players down south, but Rodgers wasn’t the first top manager to walk away from the club in this era and he might not the last. As a boyhood fan, player and now manager twice, Neil Lennon’s affection for Celtic is beyond question, but even he chose to walk out too for a variety of factors in the summer of 2014 – and he didn’t have another job to go to. It wasn’t until October 2014 that he joined Bolton.

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So spare us some of the sanctimony then when it comes to Rodgers. Whether or not it was his childhood destiny to arrive in Lennoxtown, he came, he saw, and he outright conquered Scottish football. He is the only manager in Scottish football history who can tell his Grandkids that he won every domestic trophy that he entered during his time in our game, and to go through an entire season without losing a single domestic match already seems like a sort of miracle.

For the two-and-a-half years he was here. he gave his heart and soul to the club and improved the levels of players such as Scott Brown, James Forrest, Callum McGregor and Tierney. He was handsomely rewarded for the job he did. Just don’t expect him to work for free for the club forever because he is a fan.