THE difficulties that major Scottish clubs like Aberdeen face developing young footballers who are capable of featuring in their first teams have been well documented in these pages during the past few seasons.
English clubs are now prevented from strengthening their age-group squads with players under the age of 18 from mainland Europe due to Brexit and are increasingly looking to sign up-and-coming prospects from this country as a result.
The very future of many Premiership outfits’ academies has been put in jeopardy because of this deeply concerning “brawn drain” of promising talent down south.
So it must have been heartening for Pittodrie directors to see Jack Milne, the 22-year-old centre-half who has spent the past 11 years on the books at his boyhood heroes, play a full part in the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final at Hampden on Saturday.
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They must, too, have been overjoyed to see the Aberdonian, who was drafted into the starting line-up when manager Jimmy Thelin switched from a 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-3 formation, contribute to the historic win over Celtic.
Milne, who had not kicked off a game since way back at the start of December, was certainly delighted to be involved in a day which will go down in Scottish football history and was quite happy to look back at the whole experience yesterday.
"I officially knew I was starting on Saturday, but I had a feeling all week,” he said. “We did a lot of stuff on the shape, kind of tactical stuff, and I was doing a lot of that, so I had a bit of an inkling. But Saturday was when it was officially confirmed.
“I just saw the team sheet. The feeling was just excitement. I told my mum and dad earlier in the week. I said, ‘Don’t get too excited or anything, but I think I might be playing’. After the team meeting, I dropped them a text. They replied straight away. It just said, ‘All the best, good luck, go and do your thing’.”
Milne added, “I just wanted to go and win the game, that was the most important thing. But putting on a good performance, and to come away with the trophy, that's the main thing.”
“We practised the three man defence all week. In the meeting we had, the manager said, ‘We're going to change it, we're going to change our system, to try and counter what they do’.
“I thought we were pretty comfy, pretty solid, for most of the game. We knew a lot of it was going to be us soaking up pressure and them having a lot of possession. But we shifted well, we moved side to side, we defended well and we kept them at bay pretty well.”
It was perhaps, given the lack of game time he has had in the second half of the 2024/25 campaign, understandable that Milne was unable to last the full 120 minutes or get involved in the penalty shootout. But he had complete faith his team mates would prevail without him.
“I got cramp,” he said. “It tends to happen. I haven't played much football recently and I was completely gone by the 90th minute. It was one of those, I kind of had to make a decision. I was thinking, ‘I'm not moving very quickly here’. I was running like I was in quicksand. So, I just knew that was me done.
“It was horrible watching from the bench. I couldn't stomach it. I felt sick. I couldn't watch the penalties. I was looking at the floor, looking everywhere, but the goal.
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“I saw Dimi [goalkeeper Mitov] save the final penalty through my fingers. It was a bit funny trying to block my eyes, but I saw both of his saves. I think him saving that first one gave us a real boost and that was brilliant.”
Milne continued, “I honestly can't put it into words what it means. It was the best day of my life. It's the club that my family and I, all my friends that have grown up supporting and to go and win this, it's just incredible.”
“I was there at Parkhead when Aberdeen won the League Cup in 2014. I would have been in the academy. I was at the bus parade the day after as well, but I can’t remember too much about it.
“I was sharing my room with Dante [Polvara] the day before and I was just saying, ‘Look, this is our moment’. All of us, every single player in there, believed that we could go and win the game. I know a lot of people didn't. The outside noise was we were going to get turned over. But we turned up and proved a point.”
