The prospect of a seasoned operator like Victor Wanyama mixing it in the blood and thunder of the Scottish Championship would once have seemed unthinkable.
After all, this is a midfielder who was so effective in his heyday that Mauricio Pochettino insisted on signing him twice, first for Southampton and then for Tottenham.
Yet here was the ex-Celtic star at East End Park, describing his return to Scottish football after a 12-year absence as ‘a fairy tale’ and a ‘no-brainer’.
Largely, of course, because he couldn’t resist an SOS call from his former Parkhead boss Neil Lennon, now in charge of Dunfermline, nor the prospect of a thrilling debut against old colleague Scott Brown’s Ayr United.