St Johnstone ace Nicky Clark on coaching kids with Liam Gordon

The Courier

23-04-2025

Nicky Clark coaches the next generation of Perth footballers.
And the St Johnstone striker's second job with Liam Gordon and Ross Sinclair's 'Be the Best' academy has given him an extra insight into the importance of securing the McDiarmid Park club's Premiership status for another year.
'Me and big Liam are good mates,' said Clark.
'I obviously spend a fair bit of time with him here.
'We speak most days regarding the coaching and football in general.
'It's not a long career and you've got to think about what you're going to do in the future.
'Big Gordy had been on at me for a while to start doing it.
'Eventually I said 'yes'. I'm loving it. It's been great helping the kids here. It takes me back to when I was their age all those years ago.
'Most importantly, I want to help them enjoy their football.
'The majority of them are St Johnstone fans.
'They won't know what it's like to be in the situation we're in but they're desperate for their team to stay in the Premiership.'
Gordon and Ryan McGowan were on-pitch leaders when Saints stayed up by securing a victory at Fir Park on the final day of last season.
Both were allowed to leave in the summer.
'It's obviously not my decision who comes in and who leaves the football club,' said Clark.
'They were two great players for us.
'Their experience would have been huge now that we're in this situation again.
'Big Ryan has done brilliantly at Livingston – he's looked after himself and is still performing at a good level.
'Listen, I'd have loved to have seen them here this year. I think they'd have helped us a lot but that's football.
'It was sad to see them go but life moves on.'
The stakes are high again in Lanarkshire for this weekend's first post-split fixture.
There's a five-point gap to close and not many games to do it.
'The boys who were involved in that game last year can take experience from it,' said Clark.
'It was huge.
'We did enough to stay up, albeit with a nervy time at the end when the Motherwell fans started cheering a fake goal in Dingwall!
'The lads who played that day can help the other boys over this game and the four ones after it.'
Saints know that there aren't many people outwith Perth who give them a chance of surviving.
'Of course, we can use it as motivation,' said Clark.
'But I don't think we need much more motivation than keeping this club in the Premiership.
'It's not just the football. It affects people upstairs – everybody behind the scenes who nobody really talks about.
'We know what's at stake and we're going to give absolutely everything to get us out of the situation we're in.'
Clark is confident that there will be no Hampden hangover after Saints were beaten 5-0 in their Scottish Cup semi-final clash with Celtic.
'We were obviously really looking forward to Sunday's game and it didn't go to plan,' the veteran forward reflected.
'That was disappointing but it's in the past now.
'We've got five really important games coming up and that's our focus.
'It's Motherwell up first and we need to get off to a good start.
'I've got no doubts that there are reasons to believe we can stay up.
'We're where we are because of the results in December, when we lost a lot of games.
'But since January we've put more results together and you only have to go back a couple of weeks to when we beat Celtic at home.
'We need to take confidence from that game going into these last five.
'I honestly believe we're capable of getting the results we need.
'One game at a time is key – concentrating on ourselves and not looking elsewhere.
'If we don't win our games, it won't matter what happens anyway.
'We have to turn up on Saturday.'