Kelvin Jack chuckles when he hears people talk about this CIS Cup tie involving a marathon trek for the Dark Blues.
After the transatlantic commuting Jack was involved in last week, he’ll take an eight-hour round trip to Stranraer in his stride!
“This might be a long journey but it doesn’t compare with getting to and back from Connecticut for that World Cup game,’’ smiled the Dark Blues keeper yesterday.
“Coming back I flew from Hartford to Miami, which took three-and-a-half hours, then on to London, which was another eight-and-a-half hours, then another hour from London to Glasgow.
“I must have been in transit for about 15 or 16 hours all told—so going to Stranraer is a breeze.’’
The experience Jack is in for at Stair Park will be somewhat different to the one he had playing for Trinidad and Tobago against the USA.
But he knows the demands he’ll be facing are identical.
“There were 28,000 watching the game in America and crowd-wise this will be a different story,’’ he said.
“But as the gaffer always says you make a game out to be what you want it to be.
“Every game is important and you have to respect it and be up for it even if there is a lack of atmosphere, or else you can get embarrassed.’’
Jack has made just one cup appearance for Dundee thus far—but it was memorable.
A year ago tomorrow he was involved in a 4-0 defeat of Forfar—after starting the match on the bench.
Jack was thrown into the fray midway through the second-half after Derek Soutar was stretchered off.
At that stage the match was goalless and the Dark Blues fortunate not to be behind.
However, they went through, albeit three goals in the final nine minutes painted a false picture of the night’s events.
“Forfar had the better of the first-half when they were a bit unlucky,’’ he recalled. “But we kept plugging away, eventually started passing the ball well and went on and won the game.
“You could say I’ve got a 100% cup record to defend now!’’