Jason Cummings: ‘If I hadn’t missed that penalty to relegate Hibs they’d never have gone on to win the Scottish Cup’

Now it’s a pity you lot can’t tune into our chat as Cummings motors home from training with Dundee for he’s impersonating Butcher with a thespian’s throaty bellow which would impress Sir John Gielgud - Ralphy Richardson and the boy Olivier, too. “The gaffer must have asked me eight times if I was sure - and I was. I always am.” But while Cummings got the headlines all right, it was for fluffing the kick to relegate the Leith team. “So Liam is aye texting me: ‘Are you sure?’ It’ll be good to see him again. It’ll be good to see lots of boys from before. It’s great to be back.”

An eye-catching Tayside derby

From the deathly gloom of that day Cummings – irrepressible and incorrigible – would lift the Scottish Cup with Hibs while Craig would return to St Johnstone and two months ago win the League Cup. Now in the Scottish they’re third-round opponents in a Tayside derby at Dens, an eye-catching tie made all the more so by the return of one of those guys, rarities these days, who makes the whole of Scottish football smile.

What’s not to like when, at the height of Covid, with the government struggling to cope and the unelected Dominic Cummings being far too prominent in the saga, this abreast-of-events message pops up on Instagram: “Sick of this man tarnishing my name. It’s time he steps down and the real Cumdog takes over.”

Cumdog, of course, is Cummings’ wrestling handle from a brief career in the grapple game, just the one impromptu bout, but much-viewed on YouTube with even his manager at the time, Neil Lennon joining in the cheers as he almost demolished the Hibs canteen while going mano a mano with Grado who half-nelsons for real. The vision of Cummings in his skimpy blue underpants and Bruce Lee headband, nickname felt-penned across his pigeon chest, removed any remaining prospect of the contest rivalling the homo-erotic charge of Oliver Reed vs Alan Bates in the movie Women in Love.

But - and he stresses this, because he doesn’t clown around all the time - that was the season he helped Hibs win promotion. Having helped take them down, this was only fair. “I was always going to see it through,” he says of the promise he made to himself. Then he was off.

Three and a half years in England, save for a few months at Rangers, caused much frustration for this supremely chipper character. There were highs, such as seriously unnerving just-crowned world champs Liverpool, but also lows like when he made himself homeless in Peterborough. Some of the places he played offered minimal recreation for this highly sociable lad, used to drop-dead-gorgeous Edinburgh. “Often I’d be like: ‘What happens here?’” It was time to head for home.

Scott Allan helped broker deal

“I missed my family and my pals and I missed Scottish football,” he says, en route back to Edinburgh. Still only 25, he’d love to add to his two Scotland caps, or failing that, switch allegiance to Australia, his mother’s birthplace.

Maybe most of all he missed her cooking. “Mate, you’re right,” he says, addressing your correspondent this way for the 47th time. “I’ve got my own place but I’m always round at my mums. Stuck in wee hotels down south I got sick fed up Deliveroos. It’s Tracey with an ‘e’ by the way, if you’re mentioning her. She’d love that, mate.”

He’s got his mate Scott Allan to thank for putting in a good word for him at Dens. “Scotty told the gaffer [James McPake] that I was available and looking to come back up the road.” Manager and player knew each other from Easter Road when McPake will have noted the youthful Cummings’ confidence and certainly his ebullience, with the prodigy using his debut TV interview to reveal to the world his superpower - a left foot which could open a tin of beans.

He’s almost messianic about the post-match chat being, wherever possible, an opportunity for fun and laughter. “I see interviews and players are just robotic. It’s all: ‘A good three points … We’ll dust ourselves down … The crowd were great … Usually it’s row Z.’ It must be hellish for you boys having to write that stuff. A few clubs tried to get me media-trained but I always refused. Football’s entertainment, isn’t it?”

For Dundee in his favourite No 35 shirt he’s made a fine start with five goals in his first eight games, the most recent a typical piece of Cummings poaching to spark a comeback from two-nil down to Dunfermline Athletic. “I’m mates with Fonz [Liam Fontaine] from Hibs but all the boys have been magic. Football everywhere’s been rubbish without fans but Dundee could have a real exciting end to the season. We want to be going up.”

Hung out to dry by Hearts

At Hibs Cummings failed three times in the playoffs before becoming a Scottish Cup immortal though as a boy the dream had been to star for Hearts. “All the family are Jambos. I was five years in their academy but did my right knee three times and at 16 I got released. That crushed me.” For Hibs he always seemed to enjoy scoring in capital derbies, especially when, from a division below, helping dump the rivals out of the Scottish Cup two years in a row. “You’re right, mate, I did. I thought Hearts hung me out to dry and I was bitter about that. I had a big chip on my shoulder and did say to myself before derbies: ‘I’m going to get them back, show them what they’re missing.’ I still love scoring against them but the grudge has gone.”

Before moving across the city he had a spell doing a real job and, though hard, he was glad of it. “After Hearts I was in limbo. I needed to find work but McDonalds didn’t want me and it was the same at Zara and lots of other places. Ten years of being the class clown at school had caught up with me. I spent more time out of classrooms than in them, making stupid faces through the windows. That’s a good laugh until you’re bombed out with zero qualifications so for me brain surgeon wasn’t on the agenda.

“Finally I got a job. I was Troy the gardener [the Still Game barman’s porno sideline]. Landscaping was tough, man. But getting up at seven o’clock and howking out weeds in the bucketing rain for the minimum wage gives you perspective. It makes you realise that being a footballer is the best job in the world and if you get that chance, you must grab it.”

A favourite Cummings word is “devo”, meaning devastated. He was devo by Hearts rejection and devo by Hibs relegation, and he likens the epicly hacked-off Hibee Nation right after the playoff to a scene from Call of Duty: Zombies, the protests trapping the players inside the dressing-room for three hours. “But think about this,” he says with a chuckle, “if I hadn’t missed that penalty against Hamilton Hibs wouldn’t have gone on to win the Scottish Cup. Am I no’ right, mate? Seriously, the cup was won because we started from ground zero with Leeann [Dempster, chief executive], Stubbsy [Alan Stubbs, manager] and some new boys. The club had to build back up again.”

Thought Conrad Logan was Hibs’ new chef

One new boy “saved my arse”, as Cummings puts it. Conrad Logan was the eight-game hero whose debut was as emergency goalie in the cup semi-final, his wonder saves defying Dundee United after our man had attempted a Panenka with a penalty and missed most horribly.

“This is funny. When Conrad first turned up at East Mains [Hibs’ training centre] I honestly thought he was the new chef. Conrad’s a big guy, like, and I just assumed he was taking over from the fella who’d done a runner to Mauritius. I had to thank him for the semi. Down in England I played against him when he was at Mansfield and I was still still thanking him. I’ll thank him again the next time I see him.