Ahead of the Dundee game last weekend, Nicky Devlin sat down and spoke to Mal Panton, reflecting on his first 100 games for Aberdeen. 

Nicky Devlin might not be quite the fastest to reach 100 appearances after his Aberdeen debut, but he won’t be that far away from that, having been a model of consistency and resilience ever since he joined the Dons from Livingston in the summer of 2023, just a couple of years ago.

He racked up that milestone in the game at Motherwell last Saturday, and came within fractions of celebrating with a goal, having his header cleared off the line in the first half. That sums up the regular impact that Nicky has had at both ends of the park over the last couple of years, which also saw the right-back being rewarded with a Scotland cap this time last year too. As Nicky explains, being settled at a club the way he now is with the Dons has been a key to him finding probably the best form of his career.

“Before coming here, I was at Livingston for four years and averaged about 36 games as season there, but I missed a lot of the first year, so I only played around 120 odd games. But before that, I had moved around quite a bit in my career, so I do understand how important stability is. There was a lot of my career when I first started playing, I was part-time and I’ve worked my way up to be able to play at a fantastic football club, a club where we want to achieve things. As a player, you’ve got to just work hard, that’s all you can do, and hopefully if you can get a good run together, a good bit of form behind you, then you never know where it can take you.

“When you move around, it’s not always easy to feel settled, and it’s true that, like in any job probably, you do your best work when you feel comfortable in an environment. I think in my time at Aberdeen, the other thing is that I’ve been in that period where physically, it’s probably as good as you’re going to be, so you want to capitalise on that. For me anyway, you want to be steady, you want to be at a big club, you want to win things, and you want to be playing in European games, so I’m really happy I’ve done that in my time here.

“Not that it’s ever been plain sailing! My 100 games for Aberdeen, it has been a bit of a roller coaster, with constant up and downs to be honest. One way or the other, we’ve not really stayed at a level for too long, it’s always been fantastic spells followed by tough ones.

“But good times and bad times, playing here is something I’m obviously extremely, extremely grateful for.

“It’s not lost on me that when you go and play for Aberdeen, every time you put the jersey on, you’re fulfilling thousands of people’s dreams and I do get that. I do understand that. And whether I have a good day or not, it’s never for the want of trying, because wearing that shirt demands that you give everything.

“You have to do that when you see how the fans are so passionate about this club. When we don’t win, they obviously take it really hard but as I said, I do get that. The 15,000 or 16,000 who are here every time we play at home, most of them would do anything to be on the park.”

A constant refrain from players who sign up for life at Pittodrie is that, for all that they knew about the size and the history of Aberdeen Football Club, it was only once they actually got through the door and began playing games that they understood the scale of the club and the intensity that surrounds. As someone who had already played a lot of football before he came here, including appearing at Pittodrie, was Nicky ready for it?

“When you play against Aberdeen, and you come to Pittodrie, you can obviously see the size of the club, the size of the stadium, and the size of support, especially over the last few years where the numbers at home games, and away games, has been incredible.

“But if you’re on the other team, it’s like being a tourist, you can be impressed by what you see, but you don’t live it. The truth is that I don’t think you can ever really prepare yourself for how big and how demanding this club is until you live in the middle of it. Until you probably move up here and fully experience that and understand what happens around the city with regard to the club on a day-to-day basis, you don’t get the full picture.

“For example, it’s very different from other places in the way that everyone that follows football in Aberdeen is very much an Aberdeen supporter. I’ve never been at a club where it’s been like that, where everybody supports that club. I’ve been at sides where there might be five or six clubs nearby. The fact that it’s a kind of one club city, it obviously makes it a lot more intense. I don’t think you can ever really understand just what that’s going to be like until you’re actually here.

“When I first signed for the club, Barry Robson said to me, ‘We want you to come because we want you to win trophies with us.’ He said to me ‘If you win something here, it’ll not be like winning anything anywhere else.’ You listen to what he says and you take it in, you appreciate that, you understand that, but then when you see the numbers at the parade we had after the cup final, again, I don’t really think anything can prepare you for that. Barry was absolutely right.

“I think, for me, one of the biggest things after the cup final was the social media videos, the TikTok videos and stuff like that that we all saw, and it was like all the generations together. So it was like the grandchild, the dad, and then the grandparent, or whatever it was, all at the game together, and you see how emotional each one gets. I think that was the biggest thing for me, to see that, because it shows you what we achieved means to people who support the club, especially after waiting so long to win the cup again. It shows you what this club means to people, how it joins families together.”

After the highs of the Scottish Cup win, life has been altogether more difficult this term, with the Dons awaiting that first league win when we did the interview ahead of the Dundee game. How does Nicky handle these peaks and troughs?

“I’m not sure if it gets easier to deal with the difficult times as you get older, just because you’ve had more experience. It still hurts. Obviously you try not to get too high or too low in different periods. I don’t know if maybe, as I get older, it becomes harder just because you feel that because you are one of the more experienced ones in the dressing room, you have to help hold it together.

“It maybe puts, I won’t say more pressure on you, but obviously I’ve been lucky enough to be captain of the club at times this season, and last year as well, so I don’t know if because of that I feel more responsibility because we’ve got a lot of young boys in our squad that are still learning the game. I’m still learning as well, every player is always still learning the game, but we have a lot of new players to the league, and new players to the country. I think that probably you do put a bit more responsibility on yourself as you get older.

“If you go on a bad run, and you can’t deal with a bit of pressure, then this is not the club to play for. You have to deal with pressure, you have to be able to deal with the stress that we’re under just now because of the run.

“I think as I said, a lot of that comes from it being a one club city, so there is a lot of pressure that is kind of very intense, but I think from the fans’ point of view, that comes from the fact they’re all Aberdeen. If you’re from here, everyone wants the best for the club.

“It can be difficult at times for new players, but it’s just one of the things you have to be able to deal with. Unfortunately we’re going through a poor spell just now. Everyone loved it this time last year when we were winning every game, and at the end of the season when we won the cup, everyone was happy to kind of take the plaudits and accept all the congratulations when everything’s going well.

“But it’s when it’s not going well that’s when you need to be mentally tough and stand up, that’s when the club needs you the most, when it’s not going well. And that’s when we need the fans to be mentally tough too, because this is the time when we need them the most, to help us get through it.

“We all have to stick together and help each other out.”

One of the most difficult things to do in times like this is to switch off for a little while, clear the mind of football, and refresh yourself, ready to go again. Nicky is fortunate in that when he goes through the front door, football has to take a back seat to family life.

“The biggest thing for me is obviously when you go home to the kids, they need you. It doesn’t matter if you’re lost during the day, they need you to be dad again at night. So I think having the family there helps me deal with it when we’re not maybe going through good spells or we’re not on good runs. But I suppose again that probably highlights how difficult it is for maybe boys that have not got that, and who are maybe here on their own, or just here with their partners who are maybe are out working. It can be difficult, they’re probably just constantly thinking about football, whereas I have that distraction of going home and having to draw a picture! Whatever it is you have to do, you have to be dad again, and they don’t care really how you get on during the game, you have to go back to that, switch to dad mode.”

Aberdeen’s Conference League got underway last Thursday and those games from two years ago, along with the cup final and one from closer to home are among his standout memories from his first 100 games.

“Obviously the Rangers game at Pittodrie last season was unbelievable, the atmosphere all that night was just incredible. A lot of the European games last time, we didn’t do as well in terms of results as we should have done, we didn’t get the results that the performances maybe deserved, but the atmosphere at some of the games was brilliant.

“It didn’t end up the right way for us, but I always kind of think back to the POAK game at home, when Dante scored to make it 2-0, the noise was something that I hadn’t experienced before playing in a football stadium, it was incredible.

“I think it’s been a big thing for the club this year that they have strengthened in numbers as well as quality. We do have good numbers in the squad, which hopefully we’ll be able to deal with the workload that comes with playing in Europe too. The last time we were in the group stage, we maybe didn’t have the squad to handle that, but I definitely think that now we do.

“There have been other games. The semi-final games, against Hibs at Hampden was amazing as well, but yes, there’s been plenty of ups, plenty of big moments, there’s been a lot of downs as well, but some of the good moments over the last couple of years that I’ve had here have been incredible.”

Nicky has helped himself to a fair few goals in his time as well. Which of those are his favourite?

“The Rangers goal was good, I scored in the game against Hearts last year, that was on one of my boys’ birthdays, so that was obviously special. However, I’d probably still say the Hacken goal in Sweden was my favourite one, although we didn’t get through in the end. That game was very early on in my career at Aberdeen, it was only one of my first couple of games, so I think that definitely helped to settle me down.

“I’m sure there probably was question marks about me when I signed up here, because coming from Livingston, people were maybe expecting bigger names, expecting more. The goal definitely settled me down to almost think ‘You’re here now, you’ve just got to go and do what you’ve been doing and show the reasons why the manager wanted to sign you in the first place.’ So there’s been a few good ones, every goal is a good one! But I would pick that one.

“Hopefully there are a few more to come. It’s a pity that one didn’t go in at Motherwell last week, or the week before when I hit the bar, but hopefully I can chip in with a few more during the season.”

Here’s to the next 100 games!