Having lunch in Glasgow on the day of last year’s Scottish Cup final, Scott McKenna knew his Aberdeen career was at a crossroads.
A loan spell at Ayr United had been cut short due to poor form and, with his contract due to expire the following summer, he was discussing with his agent Gordon Reid how to best put himself in the shop window.
Fast forward 11 months and he is a Dons regular, has signed two contract extensions up to 2023, has been the subject of a £1 million bids from England and is now a Scotland international.
Little of that would have felt possible last May when his future looked a lot less rosy.
McKenna said: “I sat with my agent trying to work out what I might need to do if I was going to be released by Aberdeen this summer; ‘What do I have to do to give me a chance of getting another club if I get released from here?’
“My target for the season was to try and play five to 10 games for Aberdeen this season. I hadn’t played for Ayr much and I am maybe wasn’t going to get anything at Aberdeen if I haven’t played. I felt if I could get five or 10 games then I would be in a good position for somebody to take a chance on me.
“I had just had my loan at Ayr cancelled and everything was going through my mind at the time, although I was focused on trying to get in the best shape I could for coming back. You still get doubts as to whether or not you are going to get that chance. I watched the final and then went back home.”
That experience at an under-performing Ayr United under Ian McCall was where the penny dropped for the 21-year-old centre-back, who had struggled for game-time in a team battling relegation to League 1.
He said: “I wasn’t playing well enough and I got dropped for a game. Boys came in and did well and kept the position, which was the right thing to happen – if you are the manager you need to play your best team.
“I wasn’t playing well enough and I was costing a goal a game nearly every game. I think it was Daryll Meggatt that came in and he was solid for five or six games and I could have absolutely no complaints. I was in with part-time boys training with them at night. Some of them had another 90 minutes to drive after training and were getting home at midnight before they were starting their day jobs again at 6am the next morning.
“Here I am in at 9.45am and you are away at 1 or 2pm. You need to try and keep that for as long as you can and I was determined to work as hard as I could to try and turn things around. There were boys who probably weren’t earning that much money in their day jobs and needed the money from football to get by. “If you stay full-time it was a very different lifestyle.
“There have been boys here who have gone out on loan and done well and it hasn’t worked out here. I have been the opposite. It is all about timing. You need to be in the right place in time. If the team had done well in the League Cup against Motherwell I might not be sitting here or having played for Scotland. I might still have been in the stands but thankfully I have and I have managed to grab it.”
Today’s Scottish Cup opponents Motherwell provide a fitting opponent for McKenna, given it was at Fir Park in September where he seized his Dons chance.
McKenna added: “When I ran out at Fir Park I ran out just hoping to stay in the team for two or three games. Once I got to that target I was wanting five or 10 and now I have done that and more than I could ever have imagined. I am at 25 games now and I have only missed two. I could never have imagined that.”