In a league containing international forwards Leigh Griffiths and Kenny Miller, wily prolific veterans such as Kris Doolan and Steven MacLean, and dead-ball specialists like Jamie Walker, Ali Crawford and Kenny McLean, you would have got long odds indeed on the first Scotsman to net a Premiership hat-trick this season being Andy Considine.
And yet, thanks to a combination of his clever movement, attacking intention and some fine set-piece delivery, Considine not only became the first native to take home a top-flight match ball in 2016/17, he moved up the Premiership scorers list to a position so lofty that he would be the top or joint-top marksman at a quarter of the clubs in the division. (Not Aberdeen, I hasten to add.)
Considine’s crowning glory came two years, almost to the day, after his testimonial match against FC Twente, but it is perhaps only now that he is receiving true and fitting recognition for his efforts and contribution to Aberdeen’s cause. Back in 2015, he was nearing the end of an unexpectedly successful debut season as the Dons’ regular leftback, seemingly soon to be usurped by the precontracted Graeme Shinnie; but now, two years further down the line, Graeme’s qualities are best utilised in midfield whilst Andy has blossomed into one of the leading left-backs in the land, as anyone who has been paying the remotest recent attention would testify. Opposite Shay Logan, Considine is part of a premium full-back team who work together magnificently.
It is a shame in some respects that it has taken a sudden burst of goals to bring Considine wider acclaim. We live in a world where it is only newly starting to become cool to praise the talents of footballers who never actually appear on the scoresheet – the emergence of Ngolo Kante has finally spared us from hearing everyone who hangs around in midfield without ever hitting a shot described as playing in the Makelele role, as if a boy who retired the best part of a decade ago is the only defensive midfielder who ever lived – and for Considine the greatest part of his work is done far outside the penalty area where he created such havoc at Dens. Coming late in life to a position which, reinvented as one of the most important in the modern game, calls for athleticism, poise, control, skill, daring, field vision and anticipation, that Considine, a centre-half by trade, plays it as if it was written for him is really little short of miraculous.
So to hear and see many considering a Considine hat-trick as a comedy item, or viewing its concession as some sort of grave, humiliating insult upon Dundee, is disappointing. Portraying this as a slapstick whack to the chops with a wet fish does a massive disservice to Considine. He is no red herring. His net-finding escapades may be only sporadic but that is not because he is some kind of artless galoot bounding around the fields of Scotland sclaffing balls up the stand, it is because he is busy, quietly, performing all of the other defensive and attacking tasks of a left-back with noteworthy aplomb, in a team with a goal difference approaching +40. Quite bizarre, given the dire state of Scottish football, that so many who claim to support it are quick to look down their noses at a player they clearly know nothing whatsoever about.
Andy Considine has never been a ‘fashionable’ player of the sort to have a ‘role’ named after him. Some fans of other clubs act with surprise when he achieves against them. But achieve against them he will continue to do. Because not only is he a hugely determined, ultra-fit, dedicated, versatile, intelligent, multi-faceted footballer, he is a bloody good one as well. We are lucky to have had him for his entire career, not only one unlikely evening in Dundee.
Andy Considine has never been a ‘fashionable’ player of the sort to have a ‘role’ named after him. Some fans of other clubs act with surprise when he achieves against them. But achieve against them he will continue to do. Because not only is he a hugely determined, ultra-fit, dedicated, versatile, intelligent, multi-faceted footballer, he is a bloody good one as well. We are lucky to have had him for his entire career, not only one unlikely evening in Dundee.
