100 NOT OUT
Boyd’s love of the game keeps him going as he nets historic goal for Killie
THE temples have gone grey although, as Kris Boyd points out himself with a knowing laugh, the rest of his hair has miraculously improved during a decade-and-a-half of tormenting defenders in Scotland’s top division. He’s turned a few of them prematurely white with terror, hasn’t he? He’s still at it, too.
On Saturday, this scorer of goals reached yet another milestone, his equaliser in a comeback win away to Hamilton taking him to 100 goals for Kilmarnock. In three spells at Rugby Park, interrupted only by the glory years at Rangers and then some wild adventures in Turkey, the MLS, the English game and then Ibrox again, he has performed admirably for his first club.
Just days short of his 33rd birthday, Boyd can recall with some clarity the first time he found the net for the Ayrshiremen. His hunger for scoring is still so strong that, while he’ll have his own favourites over the years, he probably enjoyed Saturday’s goal — a header from a Jordan Jones cross — as much as that first strike in senior football.
Boyd said: ‘What keeps me going? I love the game. I love playing football. I’ve been fortunate in that it’s all I’ve done. When I finish, I might look back on it all.
‘But right now, I’m getting up in the morning and love going to training. As long as you keep sharp in training, get on the pitch and keep scoring goals, you want more of it.
‘It’s like a drug. Once you’ve experienced scoring goals, you go out there feeling as if you can do it every single time. So, yeah, I’m coming to the end of my career but, with the young legs around about me, I can still score goals.
‘For me, I go into every game looking to score. I know it’s not possible but, if there are people around me creating chances, I can get into position to score goals.
‘You keep putting yourself in there. I missed a chance early on against Hamilton and, you know, a lot of strikers would bury their head in their hands and not go back for more.
‘But I’ve always been one who doesn’t really care if I miss five or six. I’ll go back for the seventh or eighth chance. I’ve always been like that. I ain’t gonna change now.
‘I know I’ve got quality team-mates around me who will find me. And I’ve been fortunate enough to finish a lot of the chances in my career.’
He continued: ‘Yeah, I can remember the first goal. It was against Motherwell at home, in the league. We won 2-0 at Rugby Park (November 2001). I think it might have been my first league start.
‘It was a long, long time ago — a good few years ago. How long? I think Lee McCulloch was playing for Motherwell, that’s how long ago it was!
‘When you’ve been as lucky as I have over the years, you appreciate it. I was playing with my mates, then found myself in a professional set-up. The transition from leaving school to playing in the first team went pretty quickly for me. I was one of the lucky ones.
‘But it didn’t come easy. A lot of people can say I don’t work hard, I don’t do this or don’t do that. When you are young, you have to fight for every break you get. I did that.
‘For me, to sit here 15 years or so after making my debut, to be still scoring goals and still going strong in the same league, I’m pretty pleased with my work.’
Well might Boyd be pleased. That applies to the shift he put in on Saturday as much as anything. Perhaps carrying a pound or two but still able to move swiftly enough when needed, the all-time leading scorer in the old SPL played for most of the game as a lone striker.
Accies took the lead through Louis Longridge midway through the first half and might have gone on to score more before Killie boss Lee Clark, serving a touchline suspension and developing a sore throat from howling into his walkie-talkie in the main stand, got the message on to change tack early in the second half.
On came Souleymane Coulibaly to partner Boyd, who had endured a disappointing first season back at Kilmarnock last term, scoring only seven goals from limited playing time.
The switch worked wonders, with Jones now given two targets to hit from the left wing, starting with Boyd for the leveller after 71 minutes. Two minutes later, the visitors took the lead through Coulibaly, who collected a dropping ball from Greg Taylor, held off and then turned Georgios Sarris — before sending a venomous shot into the net.
Accies were deflated, Killie on cloud nine, even if they did give up a couple of late chances that might have cost them dear. The winners march on with renewed optimism. And armed with a veteran striker determined to keep banging in the goals.
‘He’s always between the posts,’ is how Clark described Boyd, meaning the wide men know that any decent ball into the danger area is already worth half a goal.
The forward himself said simply: ‘I’m never happy with what I’ve got. Yeah, you might look back at the end of your career and be pleased with it. But, while you’re still playing, you have to keep looking to add to it.
‘I’m delighted to have done this for Kilmarnock, especially having done it already with Rangers. To do it with two teams, yeah, that’s a great feeling.
‘I always aim to beat the tally from the season before. I don’t think that will be hard this year. Right now, I just try to get into the team and score goals. And the most important thing is the team winning.
‘I think we’ve answered a lot of critics. A lot of people seemed to think we would just roll over. At Hamilton we fought our corner. We stayed in the game for long periods when it would have been quite easy to down tools. But we kept going.’
Not a bad philosophy for a team. Or for a forward always looking for the next chance.