Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
And helped Dee top-flight table
team with youth and experience mixed well, with some good players in there, too.
“It was lucky how it started for me but brilliant as well.”
Boyack made his first start the following week in a 2-0 win over Hearts before playing the final seven matches of the season, winning five, drawing one and losing the final match against third-placed St Johnstone.
He also notched his first senior goal in a win at Pittodrie and followed up with another at home to Dunfermline as Jocky’s side romped up the division and into a fifth-placed finish.
Boyack added: “I think at that time Dunfermline were at the bottom but they weren’t a million miles away from us so we needed those wins.
“Jocky Scott and (assistant manager) Jimmy Bone made things very easy for us players, they were pretty old school and they built a good team. There were no favourites, they picked the best team.
“We had guys like Gavin Rae in midfield, Iain Anderson, Eddie Annand, Willie Falconer, James Grady, then there was Rab Douglas who wasn’t far off the best keeper in the league, he was brilliant.
“Really dependable guys like Barry Smith and Brian Irvine, then there was Willie Miller who helped me a lot – anyone who kicked me, he’d kick them back twice as hard!
“I think we must have had 100s if not 1,000s of Premier League games of experience in that team but young players as well.”
The following season, Boyack was a regular in the Dark Blues midfield with only Rae, Douglas and Steven Tweed featuring more times for Jocky Scott’s team.
The Dark Blues would finish seventh, just one point off repeating their fifth place of the campaign before.
However, that signalled the end of Jocky’s time in charge with the flamboyant Bonettis arriving the following summer.
That also heralded the end of Boyack’s time at the club. As ever during the Bonetti era, the departure was far from straightforward.
He said: “I would have loved to have played another 40, 50 games but it wasn’t to be.” n TOMORROW: Stripped of a squad number, Boyack faced the prospect of a year on the sidelines.