Jonny rekindles his love of the
Great start netting six in nine games
Focused
Jonny Diack has revealed East Kilbride Thistle helped him fall in love with football again – after almost quitting the sport for golf.
The 22-year-old has been in fine fettle at the Showpark this season, netting six goals in nine competitive games so far.
He arrived at the tail end of last season to help the Jags earn league survival and has kicked on to become one of the first names on the teamsheet for Alan Paterson’s side.
But things might have been different for the Murray man, who started his senior career across town at East Kilbride FC in 2013.
“I was actually thinking of not playing football this year,” he admits.
“I had been playing a lot of golf and I was enjoying that more than my football.
“I was at EKFC’s Amateur team then, but we lost a lot of boys, we were getting beat quite a lot – and I don’t like getting beat – so it wasn’t much fun.
“I play off five [handicap], so I’m pretty good at golf and I thought about sticking with that.
“But at the end of last season I came to Thistle for the last few games of the season and really enjoyed it.
“I hadn’t played for a few months at that time, but Paterson asked me to come in and help out and fight that relegation battle.
“I came in and did my bit, scored a couple of goals and helped us stay up.
“I still play golf every Friday now to keep in with it.
“But football has won and I’m hoping to help the team win games.”
Jags fans may remember Diack from his spell at K-Park as a teenager, where he was part of Kilby’s inaugural Lowland League squad.
Despite showing a lot of promise, it didn’t work out for the then 17-year-old under the management of Iain King and a chance of a breakthrough under his successor, Billy Ogilvie, failed to come to fruition, spending the last four years in the amateur ranks.
“I enjoyed my time at EKFC and it was an experience being a young boy,” Diack recalls.
“I scored eight goals in pre-season and I was on fire, but I went away on holiday and lost my place in the team.
“I must have hit the post five or six times coming off the bench after that and it just wasn’t happening for me.
“I spent time at the Amateurs again, which I loved. I scored 50 goals in a season for them and helped them win five league titles in a row, so it was great to be part of that.”
He may not have been able to breakthrough at K-Park’s top team, but it’s done little to dent his confidence.
Diack is barely in the door at the Showpark and he trusts his ability to fire himself to the top of the Thistle scoring charts ahead of fellow strikers Dougie Ryan and Craig Tocher.
He added: “I want to be the top goalscorer, that’s always my aim at a club, because I like to be the main man.
“I’ve had a good start to this season with a few goals, but there’s a lot of competition here.
“I can’t just turn up and expect to play every week like I did in the amateurs. You’ve got to earn your place, especially when you’ve got guys like Dougie who is a big player here.
“He’s scored a lot of goals for the club, he’s been with Paterson’s teams for a few years and Paterson knows exactly what he can do.
“Tocher has been getting it tight for the last few weeks for not scoring, but he scored a great goal last week after missing a few, so that’s him off the mark.
“Everyone is scoring goals now - but I still don’t think they’ll catch me.”
While Diack has hit the ground running, his team haven’t had it all their own way.
Although enjoying their best run in the Sectional League Cup for 13 years, reaching the quarter-finals, the Jags have had a mixed start in the league. They’ve won three times in their opening seven league games and suffered three defeats.
Many of the losses have been of their own making and the failure to see games out has had Alan Paterson reeling over the last few weeks.
Yet Diack reckons a good season lies ahead.
He said: “The aim for this year should promotion.
“With the ability in this squad, we shouldn’t have a problem with that.
“Teams don’t like coming to play us and you saw that in the League Cup when we beat teams like Cambuslang.
“It’s going to come down to desire and wanting it more than other teams.
“We probably should have been sitting here with 15 points after the first five games, but we took seven because we couldn’t see out games.
“The Yoker game last week was madness. It could have been 5-0 at halftime, but it was only one and then they equalised. Thankfully Craig scored a screamer out of nowhere to win it.
“Our ability to finish teams off hasn’t been there, so we need to improve on that.”