JOHN SHERAN INTERVIEW

John Sheran

John Sheran

FOOTBALL Director, and former manager, John Sheran will be rooting for Cove Rangers when we play Montrose in this afternoon’s League One encounter at Balmoral Stadium.

But having made more than 300 appearances for our visitors in the 1980s - as a no-nonsense centre-back - John understandably has a bit of a soft spot for the Gable Endies.

His efforts were rewarded with a place in the Montrose Hall of Fame, so it was only natural that we should ask John to tell us about his glory days at Links Park.

How did you feel when Montrose announced you had been inducted into their hall of fame?

It was a fantastic honour, one that I didn’t really expect to happen. There are some fantastic players on their list, so it was great to know they thought I deserved to be alongside them.

What was the highlight of your time at links park as a player?

That’s easy, winning the Second Division title in 1985. It was the first time the club had ever won a league title. We just had a fantastic team, and group of people, at that time.

The spell between 1984 to 1988 was pretty special and we showed how good a team we were by also doing well up in Division One, which was packed with full-time sides at that time.It was a great time to be a Montrose player.

(John modestly forgot to add he also scored seven goals in that title winning season and was voted as the club’s player of the year).

I feel very lucky to have played for Montrose. I went there when I was only 18, so the club will always be close to my heart.

Being so young, I treated the trips up and down the road from Aberdeen to play as a bit of an adventure. Those trips on the mini-bus were a real education at times. There was no dual carriageway back then, we were careering down single track roads and were in a few close scrapes The tensions were eased by the usual pranks you see when footballers get together.

I can’t say too much, what I will say I have always been wary of eating anything out of a biscuit box after seeing what happened to the one at Montrose after Les Barr had got his hands on it!

Tell us what you remember about the day you clinched the title?

We had the chance to win it the week before but got hammered 4-1 by Queen’s Park. Thankfully, our next match was at Links Park, against Stenhousemuir.

We drew that 0-0 to secure the point we needed and then the celebrations began. It was a special day for all of us.

Ron Marquis, the kit man, is still with the club now, he would confirm that.

When people see the pictures from that day they mistakenly think I was the team captain because I’m the one pictured running about with the trophy.

But that was only because once I got my hands on it nobody could get it off me! It was a long but extremely memorable day.

Do you still keep in touch with any of your old Montrose team-mates?

Yes, we are all still the best of pals. We have regular meetings down in Montrose, enjoying a few shandies, and maybe the odd glass of wine, talking about the good old days. I also play golf regularly with a few of them.

The ones I probably see the most of are Alan Lyons, Martin Allan and Les Barr, down in Dundee. Mike Milne, Bobby Street, Raymond Charles, there’s lots of people I became close to. We do our best to keep in touch because we were together during a pretty special period of our lives.

The last time I was at Montrose for a former players day 68 of us turned up. It’s really good to be able to do things like that.

You also managed Montrose, what are your memories of that?

I was on the coaching staff for about five years, first as assistant manager (to Kevin Drinkell) and the rest as manager. We did okay, although we never really had the finances to go and compete as well as we would have liked. We did manage to win the Forfarshire Cup (in 2002).

We beat Dundee and Dundee United on the road to lifting that, which was very pleasing. I would have liked to have done a lot better, but we just couldn’t compete when it came to paying the wages needed to attract better players to Montrose at that time. I left in 2004 but really enjoyed my time and the experience certainly helped when I was eventually asked to take over at Cove Rangers.

What are your thoughts about now seeing Cove Rangers competing in the same division as Montrose?

It’s something that makes me feel very proud. We had this dream from about 2006 onwards and a lot of people put in a lot of time and effort to make it a reality.

I was pleased to have been involved on the coaching side when we finally gained promotion up into the SPFL.

The club has continued to progress from that and it’s exciting to see us now competing in the same division as Falkirk and Partick Thistle as well as Montrose, Peterhead and Forfar Athletic.

I have to add that I’m pleased to see Montrose are doing well too. It’s always been tougher for the part-time clubs but Montrose have always been well run and will make it very tough for us this afternoon.

My allegiance is with Cove now though, so I’m obviously hoping we can get the better of them.