Eoin Jess is still going his own way
An Aberdeen cup hero at 18, he stayed true to his principles during a career that failed to match early hype but...
AMAN is defined not only by his decisions but also about how he makes them. Eoin Jess, 47 this month, can look back on a career that has included a life-threatening illness among the minor injuries and major triumphs and be consoled that his every choice was dictated by an innate sense of decency.
‘It’s the way I was brought up,’ he says of one decision that cost him a fortune, probably millions.
He has been ambitious in his pursuits but not at a cost of principle. He has been accompanied on his professional travels by a moral compass that has been unerring.
The boy from Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, now lives in Barcelona. Why?
‘Why not?’ he replies with a chuckle. The residence in Catalonia has offered him a chance to reflect. ‘I will almost certainly pursue some property interests,’ he says. ‘But I view it as a sabbatical. It’s a time to take a pause before I decide what to do next.’
It is an appropriate time for a meditation on times past. It is 30 years since he signed for Aberdeen. It is 20 years since he returned to Pittodrie after a spell with Coventry City. It is ten years since he retired from playing after a career that was rewarded with 18 caps and a place in Aberdeen’s hall of fame.
It is also nine years since he suffered a stroke that was shocking but not, ultimately, debilitating. ‘I am fit and well,’ he says. ‘I play tennis and keep fit. I know I was one of the lucky ones.’
The illness struck when he was coaching at Nottingham Forest but was quickly diagnosed with the cause being pinpointed as a hereditary high cholesterol level.
There is a temptation to judge that this crisis made Jess a personality that was fated to think deeply about life but he has always been a character who made decisions after consulting a personal code.
One of the recurring themes of the nineties in Scotland was the ‘Jess to Ibrox’ storyline. ‘Rumours, rumours, rumours,’ he says. ‘I never heard anything concrete about it.’
But this regular speculation disguised the truth that Jess was once a Rangers player. It was also the first instance of him making a major decision, bravely and surely. ‘I was there on an S-form and Rangers came up to play Deveronvale,’ he says.
‘The decision to release me was made before the match but I came on in the second half and set up three goals. Rangers phoned me later to say they wanted me to stay on. But I said no. They had had their chance. My mum said she was proud of me for sticking to my guns.’
The legendary scout George Adams invited him to Aberdeen. ‘The rest is history,’ says Jess, lapsing mischievously into cliché. His first manager was Ian Porterfield but his most important influence was Alex Smith, the occasional Falkirk manager and enduring legend.
‘It was a marvellous time for me,’ he says. ‘Willie Miller, Jim Bett, Charlie Nicholas, Alex McLeish were big players and bigger characters. I was scared to go into the first-team dressing room even when I was playing for them. I was still in the reserve dressing room and I was a bit cautious about moving my stuff.’
His apprenticeship was traditional, a mixture of learning from the experienced pros while cleaning boots and painting walls and stanchions.
Success, though, came quickly and dramatically. Jess was only 18 yet part of the team that defeated Rangers 2-1 in the 1989 League Cup final.
‘I am a firm believer in football being about winning,’ he says. ‘So I suppose that is my greatest memory and biggest achievement.’
He quickly became not only a hero at Aberdeen but one of those players that fans at other clubs are fated to admire.
Technically brilliant, he had that ability to drift through defences before adding an emphatic finish.
He went on to be part of the Aberdeen side that were denied the title on the last day of the season at Ibrox in 1991 but did pick up a winner’s medal as an unused substitute in the 1990 Scottish Cup final. His next major decision came in 1996. ‘My contract was running down and I wanted to try something else,’ he says. ‘I was playing well and felt I wanted to test myself elsewhere.’ There was interest from Torino and Sampdoria and English Premier League clubs. ‘I knew about the link with Sampdoria,’ he says. ‘They wanted me to let my contract run down and then sign me on a free.’ This did not sit well with Jess. ‘I was very grateful to Aberdeen. They had given me the chance to play professional football and I wanted them to be rewarded for that.
‘That’s basically why I went to Coventry City. Yeah, I wanted to play in the Premier League but I wanted Aberdeen to get a fee.’
The price paid was £2million. Jess will not say what he lost by not joining Sampdoria but it is reasonable to assume that a seven-figure sum would have found its way into his bank account and in pounds not lira.
‘I have absolutely no regrets about that,’ he says. ‘I was pleased to be part of a deal that rewarded Aberdeen. That’s the way I have been brought up.’
The interlude in the Midlands lasted one season before he returned to Pittodrie for £700,000.
‘The Premier League was full of 6ft 2ins athletes and I got caught up in that. It was not my style,’ he says. He was more successful when he returned to England in 2001, playing with Bradford City, Nottingham Forest and Northampton before retiring in 2007. He coached the youth squad with Nottingham Forest and still heads to Barcelona bars to watch graduates such as Jamaal Lascelles, now at Newcastle, and Patrick Bamford, now at Middlesbrough. ‘I enjoyed coaching but became disillusioned by the way it ended at Peterborough,’ he says of leaving the club in 2013. He decided to move to Barcelona two years ago and quietly investigate business opportunities in a city he has come to love. ‘I suppose if a job at Barca came up I would be interested,’ he chuckles. But he relishes the anonymity of living in a major city far from the field on which he
They had big characters ...I was scared to go into the dressing room
made his name. ‘I have always been quiet in that sense,’ he says.
‘I remember sitting in a stand injured at a game at Hampden and Terry McDermott and Kenny Dalglish came along the row. Kenny was my hero. Terry said hello then nudged Kenny to say: “There’s Eoin Jess”. I got a wave from Kenny and I was delighted.’
He is now the subject of some curiosity in Barcelona. ‘The kids of my friends Google me or look me up on YouTube when they are told I was a footballer,’ he says. ‘But I never mention it. I was always quiet about things like that.’
He will head for tapas and fitba tomorrow as Aberdeen take on Rangers. ‘I will always be an Aberdeen fan and I like what Derek McInnes is doing for the club,’ he says. ‘I hope he stays and continues to improve the club.’
Jess now lives at the centre of the Catalonian crisis with the very future of Spain under scrutiny and pressure. ‘I have been interested in all the developments but I don’t get involved with politics,’ he says. ‘It has calmed down a bit but I do not know what will happen.’ But what of his future? ‘I still believe I will become involved in business though Brexit has confused matters,’ he says. ‘But I have always loved football and coaching. Maybe I will wake up one morning and decide I must get back into the game, or receive an offer that excites me. Who knows?’
The future may be unpredictable. The past offers a certainty that Jess will make any decision for the right reasons.