Our flat wasn’t tidy, we didn’t even have a dining table. We had a pool table instead. But it was a brilliant time, just living with your pals and playing football...
FROM LAURENCEKIRK TO VANCOUVER VIA LISBON, RYAN GAULD HAS COME A LONG WAY FROM HIS ‘MINI MESSI’ DAYS
AXEL Schuster, chief executive of Vancouver Whitecaps, plants himself down at a table and gazes into the camera. He eyes two bottles of water and, in a wry nod to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola rant at Euro 2020, discards both.
He replaces them with two bottles of Irn-Bru and the cat is out of the bag. The Scottish Messi is on his way.
The availability of Scotland’s other national drink in Canada was never high on Ryan Gauld’s list of priorities. Yet, the experience of swapping Laurencekirk for Lisbon at the age of 18 taught him one thing. Moving to a new country, a little taste of home is good for the spirits.
‘There is a wee shop ten or 15 minutes from the Whitecaps training ground which sells Scottish and English food,’ Gauld tells Sportsmail.
‘I think they managed to import a few bottles of Irn-Bru there and I’ve been there once or twice. I enjoy a drink of Irn-Bru now and again. They’ve taken most of the sugar out of it anyway, so it doesn’t do much harm, does it?’
Dreamed up by the Whitecaps social media team, the Irn-Bru transfer teaser was smart, witty and eye-catching. If only they’d asked, they could have pushed the tartan theme a little further.
‘I like a bit of haggis now and again as well,’ admits Gauld. ‘The same shop actually sells haggis and that’s another one on my list for a wee taste of home at some point.’
Vancouver and Laurencekirk — with a population of 3,000 — are separated by 7,000km, culture, climate, eight hours and the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, from the balcony of his new home, Gauld can tap in to the life he left behind last month.
A short stroll to one of the glorious beaches of English Bay propels him back to the Algarve, where he spent the best season of his career at Farense and retains a home.
When training is done, he takes advantage of a narrow window of opportunity to Facetime family in Aberdeenshire.
Other times he might catch up with old pals John Souttar and Andrew Robertson and wind the clock back to the days when the dirty plates piled up on a pool table in their Dundee flat like a scene from the Inbetweeners.
‘Vancouver is completely different culture to Laurencekirk,’ he says. ‘Polar opposites, in fact.
‘I think back to when I started at Brechin City boys’ club before moving to Dundee United. I was there with John (Souttar). His dad Jack was the coach of our team from the age of six.
‘Dundee United was our first big step on the ladder. There was me, John, Andy Robertson and the likes of Gary MackaySteven and Stuart Armstrong. Looking back, it was a very good team.’
In 2014, a picture appeared on social media showing four beaming pals posing with a ball in a park with the Tay Rail Bridge in the background. Bottom left, wearing goalkeeping gloves, was the future captain of Scotland, Robertson. To his side was Souttar, the Hearts central defender gearing up for tomorrow’s Edinburgh derby against Hibs. Standing up, wearing a Barcelona top, was a young man cursed by the Messi tag until the hype persuaded Sporting Lisbon to sign him for £3million. ‘That stuff used to give us all a good laugh,’ Gauld grins now. ‘The things people said were a bit much. ‘It wasn’t just me who was in that boat. John and Andy were attracting a lot of attention and headlines when we all lived together in a flat in Dundee.
‘We didn’t even have a dining table in that flat. All we had was a pool table in the middle of the floor where the living room and kitchen was.
‘We had breakfast and lunch at the club. But the fourth boy who lived with us was Joe McGovern and he fancied himself as a bit of a chef at some point.
‘Listen, he was more of a cook than the rest of us. He couldn’t be any worse, to be fair.
‘We weren’t the tidiest four boys. It wasn’t always the tidiest of flats. But we were fine with that because we were all really close and we still are.
‘You look back on those days fondly. It was a brilliant time just living with your pals then waking up in the morning and going into training together.’ With time to fill when the training was done, the flatmates chipped in £20 each to buy a set of seven-a-side goals and assembled them on a patch of grass at the Riverside.
‘We were always together after training as well,’ says Gauld (left, in his Dundee United days). ‘We were pals as well as team-mates.
‘We still speak all the time. Robbo was in Portugal for his holidays over the summer and I met up with him there before coming over to Vancouver. I still keep in touch with John on a regular basis as well. He’s had a tough time with his injuries, but he is coming back now and has started the season very well with Hearts.
‘I was surprised he wasn’t in the Scotland squad actually, I thought he would have been straight back in. That will come.’
No interview with Gauld can pass
I needed a new challenge. Whitecaps was the place where I felt most wanted
without the subject of Scotland cropping up eventually. On current evidence, the 25-year-old is ripe for international recognition. He scored nine goals and racked up seven assists in 33 games for Farense last season.
Since moving to the MLS, he has claimed four goals and two assists in an unbeaten Whitecaps run stretching to 10 games.
A 2-1 comeback win over Austin FC made it four wins on the bounce and local fans have already dubbed him The Gauldfather. Still the call from Steve Clarke never comes.
‘I feel I had a good season last season and still didn’t get the shout,’ he says, with no hint of bitterness.
‘I think there was a list of 32 or 33 for the Euros and I wasn’t even on there.’
Playing in Portugal and Canada, it seems, has placed him out of sight and out of mind.
‘In Scotland, they have always had that mindset that if you are not in Britain, then you can’t be doing very well,’ he says with a hint of exasperation.
‘But I think you can see that I
had a really good season in Portugal, a pretty high-calibre league. To not even be considered was very frustrating, but I am just focused on myself.
‘Who knows? Johnny Russell has done well over here and had a few call-ups. I wouldn’t say it’s completely out of the question.’
His cause isn’t helped by the options available to Clarke in his position. Billy Gilmour has pinched Gauld’s billing as Scottish football’s next big thing, anchoring the midfield in a huge win over Austria.
While the two players have never met, Gauld both admires the Chelsea midfielder and relates to the pressure and expectation being heaped on his young shoulders.
‘You have to try not to think about the hype,’ he says. ‘You can’t buy into it. ‘I don’t know Billy. Watching him, he is an unbelievable player and if he keeps going the way he is going, then he has a huge future ahead of him and it will be a really good for Scotland if he does.
‘All that kind of stuff started for me when I was living in the Dundee flat with the other lads and it became more of a laugh than anything else. Mainly because of how ridiculous it was.
‘By going abroad I managed to get away from all that. I reinvented myself.
‘But I know people have now started asking, “Why on earth is he going to MLS?”.’
Gauld threw Scottish football a curveball when he picked Sporting as a teenage prospect. When he accepted a lucrative offer to become a designated player at Vancouver Whitecaps, he did it again.
‘I really love Laurencekirk and I loved growing up there,’ he explains. ‘There weren’t a lot of people there, but all my family lived there and that was enough for me for long enough.
‘I don’t exactly know why, but I always felt I would like the chance to experience a different language, a different country, new cities.
‘It was tough in Portugal in the beginning because it was all brand new and a bit overwhelming. I knew there would be days and nights when it would feel tough.
‘On the pitch, things didn’t always go as I planned, but I grew to love Portugal. I’ve still got a place down in the Algarve, so it’s definitely somewhere I would like to go back to.
‘But after seven years there I was ready for a new challenge. And the Whitecaps was probably the place where I felt most wanted.
‘Right now, I’m convinced I’ve made the right move. This feels right.’
From Laurencekirk to Lisbon to LA, Ryan Gauld has put in the hard miles. Much like his favourite tipple, he is made in Scotland from girders.