Veteran goalkeeper Craig Nelson has twice been to a national cup final with first division clubs, but helping second division Brechin City to a semi-final would be an achievement out on its own.
The Glebe Park outfit are just one game away from the last four of the Scottish Cup, and Nelson believes beating the SPL’s St Johnstone on their own Angus patch on Saturday afternoon is an attainable goal.
The 39-year-old, who is by some distance the oldest player left in the competition, said, “Getting to any stage of the cup is an achievement at my age! Now that Rangers and Davie Weir are out I suppose I’ll be the oldest still going strong, which I can’t say I’m delighted about.
“To get to a Scottish Cup semi-final with a club the size of Brechin would be a massive achievement. I’ve been to two finals before with first division clubs (Ayr United and Falkirk) but they’d spent good money on players. At Ayr we had the likes of John Hughes, Pat McGinlay and James Grady in our team.
“We’ve got younger guys like Rory McAllister and Tiger (Craig Molloy) who a lot of clubs will be looking at. There’s no doubt they can play at a higher level and they’ll want to make their mark in this game.”
On Brechin’s chances against Saints, Nelson observed, “We did a professional job up at Buckie to get us into the quarter-finals and now we’ve got to approach this match as one we’ve got a really good shout of winning.
“Because we’re at home, and because it’s a tight pitch that is very heavy just now, it could be interesting. If we play to our capabilities I think we can beat most teams here on any given day.”
The Brechin playing and management team is littered with ex-Saints, and Nelson is one of them. But whereas the likes of Jim Weir and Kevin McGowne look back on their days at McDiarmid Park with affection, Nelson admitted that he didn’t manage to make his mark at Perth.
“I was at St Johnstone for nearly two years. Billy Stark signed me then John Connolly took over and he let me go,” he said. “My memories of St Johnstone are more or less of reserve games, unfortunately. It wasn’t a great time in my career.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was a good place to come and work, but the disappointing thing was I didn’t play as often as I would have liked. Kevin Cuthbert was here and they also brought in Allan McGregor on loan from Rangers for a spell. He’s not done too badly for himself since, has he?
“My experience at St Johnstone is something that happens all the time in football. The game’s all about opinions some people rate you, others don’t. You’ve just got to accept that.
“I moved on and I’ve loved my time at Brechin so it has worked out well for me.”