|
The 33 year old Glaswegian started his career with Falkirk before moving south of the border to join Millwall for £100,000 just after the start of the 1990/91 season. He was there for six years during which time he missed very few games and it took a deal with more than £1 million to prise him away.
That was from Peter Reid at Sunderland, he was strengthening his squad after winning promotion to the Premiership. Rae had his problems during his time at Sunderland, problems brought about by his off field activities. They are well documented and problems, which to his great credit, are now in the past.
Despite this the Sunderland fans loved him and after a spell away from the club to get things sorted he returned to the first team and a wonderful response from the supporters. It took some doing to win back a place too, by this time the two central midfield positions had just about become the property of Lee Clark and someone by the name of Kevin Ball.
But he did get back and did play a good number of games for them in the Premiership before moving to Wolves a couple of years ago as David Jones was looking to build a squad to take Wolves up. It took another sizeable fee too, this time £1.2 million.
Promotion has been achieved and he more than played his part last season although he had to be content with a place on the bench at times with Paul Ince and Colin Cameron both playing so well. His last appearance was in the play off semi-final second leg at Reading where after coming on as a sub he scored the only goal of the game.
On the field he is the sort of player that opposition fans hate, remember the two red card incidents with Alan Moore and Paul Cook during 2002. But he is also the sort of player that fans love when he plays for their club.
Off the field he has involved himself with the Tony Adams Foundation and does a lot of good work involving himself with apprentices and young professionals in the game.
Back to football though and with Wolves having gone up it may be that it is time to move on from Molineux and next time he starts a game it could well be in the Claret & Blue of Burnley.