INTERACTIONS between the football fraternity and the local constabulary are commonplace, but Steven Milne must be the first player to be subject to a mid-season transfer.

The 33-year-old Arbroath striker - who has featured previously for Dundee, Plymouth Argyle and St Johnstone - will bring an end to his 17-year career when he joins the police force immediately after his club's SPFL League 1 meeting with Rangers this evening.

While scoring a winner against the Ibrox club would be an arresting end to Milne's playing days, he does have some previous in that regard: not only did he share the limelight with unlikely strike partner Claudio Caniggia as a youngster during one swashbuckling Ivano Bonetti-era Dundee league win at Ibrox, he also repeated the feat by netting twice for St Johnstone in a 2-0 League Cup win in Govan which all but put paid to the Paul Le Guen era at Rangers. On the downside, the Ibrox club were also on hand to crush his Scottish Cup final dream with Dens Park club in May 2003.

"I applied for it about a year ago and there was no sort of timescale," Milne told Herald Sport. "It was just sort of when it came around, it came around. I let the manager [Paul Sheerin] know all about it before I signed and he was happy to go ahead anyway. I had been told it would probably be towards the end of the season, if not into next season before anything happened, so it was a bit of a surprise. But obviously with it being Rangers, on TV, it is a good game to end on and hopefully I can play a part."

The contentment Milne feels when he contemplates his first career is born of the fact that much of it has been achieved in outright defiance of his body. From the heady extravagance of his apprenticeship amongst the big names of the Dundee dressing room came the injury and homesickness which cost him his chance to shine amid Bobby Williamson's shortlived Scottish experiment at Plymouth. Five knee injuries later, Milne was just happy to still be earning a living out of the game. "You would never imagine you would end up playing in the same team as someone like Claudio Caniggia," said Milne, "Especially as when you were younger you were watching him on TV in the World Cup final. But it was a great experience and it wasn't just him; there were a load of outstanding players about Dundee at that period of time - Georgi Nemsadze, Temuri Ketsbaia, Fabrizio Ravanelli. I learned a lot from them all.

"Caniggia was well known all over the world. I remember going to a nightclub in Italy one pre-season and we weren't allowed in until he got there. As soon as he did, we went up to the VIP bit and got champagne all night for free. I even remember a girl coming up to get his autograph and fainting. It was just mad.

"But when I look back, all I have is good memories that I have been able to play for the teams I have and had the career I have had. Plymouth possibly was the tipping point: I was doing very well in the Premier League with Dundee at the time and got the move. Then just when I was getting into the team, the midweek before what was meant to be my first start, I got a bad injury in a reserve game and I was out for four or five months with that. In the end I came home one year into a three-year contract because I was homesick and went to St Johnstone. I had a knee injury every year for five years so I've missed a lot of football but I've been back a while now and I am fortunate to be able to say that."

Milne has no plans to continue playing on a part-time or amateur basis, although a spot of coaching is a possibility. His second chosen profession, something else he has aspired to do since school days, will command his full attention.

"I remember even at school I went to the police on work experience," he said. "It has a load of plus points, you are going in there trying to help people, and are not sitting in an office all day, doing the same thing all the time. It will fit well with what I want to do and is something I have always fancied doing. It is a second career, I have been lucky enough to do the first one, so I am chuffed to be able to do both."

Sheerin would have preferred to have him until the end of the season, but Milne, also a former Forfar Athletic player, is not expecting too many other tearful tributes. "I think the Arbroath fans will be delighted to see the back of me," he says.