I PREFER IRN-BRU TO SANGRIA!
Jack Harper grew up in Madrid playing tiki-taka with Ronaldo, but Malaga’s Scottish striker says…
BRITS on the beach in Malaga in the middle of winter are not an uncommon sight but it doesn’t take long for locals to realise that there is something different about this one.
Jack Harper is the Scottish centre forward leading Malaga’s promotion charge back to the first division in Spain, almost a decade since he was signed by Real Madrid when he was just 13 and first having his picture taken with Cristiano Ronaldo at their training complex.
‘He’s the hardest working player out there and I know, because I have seen it first-hand,’ he says of one of his boyhood idols whom he admired at close quarters during his six-year stay at the club.
‘He was always the first to come in and the last to leave. I don’t think I ever saw his car move. I think he feels guilty about doing anything that’s not 100 per cent professional and that’s probably the right thing. If you only play for 10 or 12 years, you should give it your all and he takes that to the next level.’
As Harper progressed through the youth ranks at Madrid, reaching the team’s Under 19 UEFA Youth League side, he got steadily closer to the first-team superstars.
When the then Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti wanted a couple of extra players for practice games, Harper would often get the call to play as the striker the team would be up against in the next match.
How did a call-up like that change that morning’s training session? ‘Well it’s your moment,’ he says. ‘A little bit of tension is good for a footballer. Too much, probably not, but some tension builds character. If you can handle it, then that’s good.’
Harper’s fireman dad and mum, a nurse, moved to Spain before Jack was born. It was a 22-day road trip in a beaten-up old camper van that included a stop-off at Euro Disney and another, when the van broke down, in Fuengirola, where they set up home. Jack was born six months later, and when he was old enough his dad took him to watch Malaga in among the club’s army of British expat supporters.
‘I don’t ever remember learning Spanish or English, I just began speaking Spanish at school and English at home,’ says Harper, 22. ‘I was Spanish through the day and would go home and be Scottish, that is how I would describe it.’
He played for Fuengirola until Madrid spotted him aged 12. ‘You tell your friends and they don’t believe it, they think Madrid is something out of this world,’ he says.
When Real Madrid disbanded their C team in 2015, just as Harper was due to play for them, he had a big decision to make. They wanted to send him out on loan but he chose a different path. ‘I was going to Stoke City,’ he says.
‘Mark Hughes was the manager and they had been watching me the whole year and they had a plan for me. They wanted me in the first team quickly.
‘I was all ready to sign but the doctor blocked it. I had internal bleeding in my knee. I didn’t think it was that bad but when they did more tests, it was a six-month lay-off. It was heartbreaking. I’ve not cried much in my life but that was a sad day.
‘I came home and did a month’s recovery by myself and Brighton were still keen on signing me. I appreciate that to this day.’
Although the move to Brighton was blighted by those first months spent alone in physio, he still feels the experience helped.
‘Growing up in Madrid, I would say I have the tiki-taka side of football. I still had to man-up and that’s what English football gave me.’
Now back in Spain leading Malaga’s promotion drive, his unorthodox career path seems to have matured him beyond his years.
He remains an unashamed mix of Scottish and Spanish, shouting ‘Gol!’ when he scores because ‘that’s what the fans shout’ but preferring Irn-Bru over Sangria.
‘I’ll have one now and then, when I deserve one,’ he says.
As he turns away from the sea and heads back to dry land a fan shouts out: ‘To the first division!’ Harper gives him the thumbs up. The supporters will want to buy him more than an Irn-Bru if they are promoted. In the club’s last home victory, he scored the winner to put them top.
‘Malaga’s objectives are the same as mine,’ he says. ‘Hopefully both me and the club will be playing in the top division next year.’