He spent his whole playing career in Scotland yet his managerial career has been entirely based down south.

Through it all Steve Evans has bled green and white. The man loves Celtic.

He was once asked by a journalist if he'd like to succeed Brendan Rodgers in the Parkhead hotseat. He needn't have answered.

Yet Evans has one big regret in football - the fact that he opted to sign for Bolton Wanderers instead of Celtic when he was just 15 despite a house visit from Billy McNeill and John Clark.

"People often say to me about regrets in management and football - my biggest regret is that I did not sign for Glasgow Celtic when I should have done," Evans told The Celtic Way. "When big Billy, John Clark and John Kelman all sat in my house and asked me to sign when I was a 15-year-old boy in Westburn.

"John Kelman was the scout that covered Bolton Wanderers for Scotland when they were in the top flight. I had been down to Bolton a few times but John left Bolton and joined Billy at Celtic. After helping me agree on a deal to go to Bolton, John brought Billy and John Clark to my house.

"When they left the house I was torn between my love for Celtic and going down to Bolton and looking back now that is a big regret that I didn't sign for Celtic. I was 15 and I would have made a different decision every other day of the week. That is the only regret I have but my love will always be there for the club.

"Tommy Burns once described Celtic as not being a football club or a team but a cause. He nailed that on the head. It chooses you rather than the other way around.

"That bond and tie that binds you as a Celtic fan never ever leaves you. It was my dad who first took me to games and lifted me over the turnstiles and put me down the front. You never forget that, it is in your life and blood forever.

"So I came to England as an apprentice with Bolton at 15 and then I went back north of the border and played up there. I finished early through injury at St Johnstone and two or three years later I got an opportunity to come back down south with work and nothing to do with football. That's how I ended up in this part of the world.

"It's been an incredible journey and to go from a local non-league club into full-time league management is a special achievement. People up the road would recognise the junior set-up level and be able to have the success and the promotions and manage some of the big clubs that I have been fortunate enough to be in charge of. I have been very lucky."

Evans revealed that it is his love for the Hoops that has prevented him from coming back north of the border despite being offered jobs in Scotland at top-flight level. Five times he has rejected the chance to come back home.

Last month he did a post-match interview as Stevenage boss the same day his beloved Celtic had humbled Rangers 4-0 earlier this season and he grinned from ear to ear all the way through it.

The 59-year-old said: "I have been offered the chance - I will not go into the clubs or the jobs as that would be unfair to them - to manage in the Scottish Premiership on five separate occasions.

"I have been approached by the same club twice to take the reins and three times by other clubs to become their manager. Four different clubs have wanted my services in Scotland. I have always felt that possibly in Scotland I wouldn't be able to do it justice because I follow Celtic. That's the way it is.

"I know there are a lot of managers like Malky Mackay [Ross County manager] who have a big Celtic connection and he can bring himself to manage elsewhere. I'm a bit different in the fact that I am green and white through and through and that was a massive reason for me not taking a job back up the road.

"I love the banter that comes with supporting one of the big two Glasgow clubs. I love Glasgow Celtic despite having many friends who support Rangers. It is probably one of the main factors why I have never come back to Scotland to manage.

"That interview on the day of the 4-0 game was absolutely brilliant and I couldn't resist mentioning it!"

About that Celtic job...

Evans once came fairly close to assuming the dream managerial position that he has coveted all his life and, while that round of golf with Dermot Desmond continues to elude him to this day, he will never give up.

Hope springs eternal for Evans on that score - even to the point that he jokingly said that he has man-marked the gents toilet on the odd occasion he has been at Parkhead corporate hospitality knowing Desmond was only a few doors away.

Celtic Way:

"I was on the shortlist for the Celtic manager's job once," he said. "They had a preferred candidate. Without going into names, the preferred candidate got it and I got a phone call to say that they had this guy in mind and if he accepted it then the job was his. If he didn't then they wanted to meet the other three guys on the list. I was one of those but the preferred candidate took the job. That is the nearest I got.

"I never got the opportunity at the time to meet Dermot Desmond. That would have been the stage I would have been at. Listen, if we were both playing a round of golf I would have fired every shot into the water in order not to beat him. I'm not stupid!

"I have been at Celtic Park when Dermot has been there. I am always one room away from where he is seated. I keep walking past hoping that he goes to the toilet. I have guarded the toilet door at times thinking he must need to go at some point. People laugh at me when I say that.

"If god has his way then the opportunity will come when I do get the chance to shake the great man's hand. Since he took the chair of this football club there has not been one single thought about the dark days that it went through many years ago. I would tell Dermot it is an honour and a privilege to meet him."

Evans' name also made headline news when he was asked a direct question about replacing Brendan Rodgers at the Celtic helm when he quit for Leicester in 2019. He admits that he gave a very frank and candid answer to that one.

"I remember getting the nod that Brendan Rodgers was leaving Celtic," he recalls. "Brendan is a very good friend of mine. I was asked a question would I like to replace Brendan Rodgers at Celtic? That's like asking the local parish priest if he wants to replace the Pope! He is going to Rome, isn't he? He's off! The answer was yes.

"I was simply not going to be offered the Celtic job back then and I was fine with that. At least my name was bandied about at one point within the corridors of the club at one point. That alone makes me very, very proud.

"Brendan is a wonderful and great man. He is an incredible coach, man-manager and human being. He made a lot of Celtic supporters' dreams come true at times when he was the boss of the club. Leicester City then presented him with an opportunity and a package and like the rest of us he is a family man with bills to pay and that offer was one that he couldn't resist.

"There is nothing wrong with that. Ask Andy Robertson or Kieran Tierney where they want to play their football. They will tell you that they want to play at Celtic Park for Celtic. Yet they are currently both playing in phenomenally brilliant Liverpool and Arsenal teams.

Celtic Way:

"Why are they there and not at Celtic? Andy and Kieran will be earning the type of wages and having career success that one can only dream of.

"It is not just managers but players who can make astronomical life-changing sums of money away from Celtic. It is life-changing not just for you but also for your family and you are not going to turn it down - although I would not rule out either of those two players coming back to sign for Celtic later in their careers."

Evans did get a taste of the big time when he was appointed manager of Leeds United back in October 2015 under Italian owner Massimo Cellini.

He takes great delight in recounting the story of how he ended up talking to himself from his Elland Road office after a host of famous managers rang him up to congratulate him on getting the Leeds United job.

Evans has been the manager of many clubs and served them all with distinction. From non-league Stamford to Boston (twice), Crawley, Rotherham, Leeds United, Mansfield, Peterborough, Gillingham and finally League Two outfit Stevenage where he is currently employed.

It's been quite the journey for the boy who hails from Westburn in Cambuslang.

Evans said: "When I went to Leeds United as manager, within 24 hours I received phone calls from Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger, Ruud Gullit and Gianfranco Zola. They all rang me personally and told me that I had joined a wonderful club and that it was a cracking job.

"If there had been a camera inside my office on the wall at Elland Road, I would have been led away in a wee white van. I came off the phone with all of these famous football people and I was having conversations with myself in my office at Elland Road. 'Did I just speak to Sir Alex Ferguson?' And the reply is coming back 'yes, you did Steve!'

"'Was that Jose Mourinho I was talking to there a moment ago?' 'Yes, it was Steve!'. It was incredible. It was an amazing feeling.

"I was thinking 'hang on a minute, I am just a wee boy from the circuit in Cambuslang, how did this happen?' It was all a bit surreal. Football can take you anywhere in your career. It is an amazing world as it can bring you the best rewards ever when you are in it... although it can also be the most harrowing and nasty profession ever."

One question remains when it comes to Leeds United and Celtic: which club is the biggest?

Evans said: "That is a very difficult question to answer because I have never been the manager of Celtic. Leeds United is a massive football club.

"From my point of view, Leeds is a huge football club and so is Celtic. I remember watching Celtic v Leeds United in the semi-final of the European Cup in 1970 at Hampden Park and going along with my dad and over 130,000 others. That tells you how big those two clubs are."

No matter where he pitches his managerial flag in England you will never take the Cambuslang boy out of Steve Evans - nor his love for Celtic for that matter.