CAPTAIN JACK EYES THE STARRING ROLE
Skipper has stomach for battle as Aberdeen seek a silver lining
EVERY day he sits down to eat his lunch, Ryan Jack is served a reminder of how his appetite as an Aberdeen skipper is a long way from being satisfied. A board on the wall of the Pittodrie players’ canteen, which doubles as Captain’s Club hospitality lounge on match days, lists many great leaders of the Dons among those to have worn the armband.
Jack’s name features, of course, as the current captain alongside his start date of 2015. There is a blank space where the year his tenure comes to an end will be etched.
But that is certainly not the missing link in this illustration that preys on the midfielder’s mind.
It is that he has yet to experience what became routine for Willie Miller, how Alex McLeish’s reign began and what Stewart McKimmie and Russell Anderson experienced in the role — that feeling of being presented with a trophy and lifting silverware as Aberdeen captain.
Jack has kept mighty good company at Pittodrie since his name appeared on the board. He is inspired, not intimidated, by his place among them. When Derek McInnes took the local boy to one side in the close season last year and informed him he was the surprise selection to replace Anderson at the age of 23, images of him holding aloft the Scottish game’s biggest honours flickered to mind.
Today is the day they can come true. Jack states it is ‘100-per-cent correct’ to say that while runners-up finishes in the league have been praiseworthy, it is prizes that he craves to define his period as Pittodrie captain.
‘When I finish my career, I will look back at my time at Aberdeen and think: “We got the club back to where it should be”,’ said Jack. ‘We were consistent in the league and managed to get back into Europe.
‘But it is all about medals and trophies. When the manager asked me to take over the captaincy, the first thing I thought about was how good it would be to be there, with the rest of my team-mates, leading us up the stairs to lift a trophy.
‘I’m sure every captain visualises himself doing the same. You want to make your mark and be remembered. I want to lead the team on Sunday, get a good result and be remembered as a captain who has won something.
‘I’m following in the footsteps of some impressive captains. You look at the board in the stadium and there are so many great names. Then you look down at the bottom of the list and see my name. You think: ‘I’m on a wall with so many legends and captains who’ve won something. It just makes me want to go and lift a trophy like them.
‘You want to look back and see what medals you were able to win and what trophies you were able to lift. We spoke about this at the start of the season and we all agreed this was what we wanted to do.’ Those aims were aired in definitive fashion, following pre-season at St Andrews, in a Pittodrie meeting that has so far plotted a route to a Betfred Cup Final against league leaders Celtic.
Jack explained: ‘We sat down at the start of the season with the manager and the staff and he asked us what we wanted to do this season, where we wanted to go. And we all said we wanted to make sure we got to at least one cup final.
‘We want to maintain what we’ve done in the league, put up a good challenge. But we especially wanted to do better than the season before in the cups. So far, we’ve answered up. We’ve got the club to a final and we want to go the next step now and win the trophy.
‘That meeting was to make sure we were all wanting to go in the right direction. It’s important that everyone is playing the same tune and has the same ambitions. It’s not just for me as one player to speak up in that environment.
‘It’s there for everyone who wants to say something. Outlining all that makes players aware of their responsibility. When you set goals and targets, you are determined to achieve that and I’m sure the rest of the guys are the same.’
A 19-year silverware drought weighed heavily on Aberdeen’s shoulders before their appearance in the March 2014 final against Inverness. As Aberdeen men, Jack and his predecessor Anderson felt the strain brought on by nervous expectation more keenly than most.
The mature manner in which the 24-year-old addressed the task now, ahead of the showpiece clash with unbeaten Celtic, is an indicator of how far he and the squad has come under the guidance of McInnes.
Jack explained: ‘Aberdeen may feel like a big city but everyone knows everyone and you do feel it. You can’t hide it. You can’t say you don’t feel the pressure. You do.
‘There was a lot of pressure on our shoulders before the Inverness final because we hadn’t won a trophy for a while.
‘The last time, the build-up, the training week, it was all new, I’d never experienced it. There was talk about whether we’d fall at the final hurdle again. Every day you’d hear people saying: “You’ve not won a trophy for 20 years, are you going to fall again, are you going to let everyone down?”.
‘But we didn’t. Thankfully, we fronted up and now we have those great memories — the bus parade down Union Street will live with me for the rest of my life. I don’t see why we can’t have that feeling again.
‘This time people will say we are underdogs. In our changing room we believe we can win it. Celtic have beaten us twice this season. But we’re not that far away and, with our team spirit and how tight we are as a group, that can go a long way in a cup final.’
‘We are always under pressure at Aberdeen. ‘There are always questions to be answered and this weekend is no different. We want to be known as a team who achieved something when we were here.’
‘I WOULD LIKE TO LEAD OUT THE TEAM AND BE REMEMBERED AS A CLUB CAPTAIN WHO WON SOMETHING FOR ABERDEEN’