Kilmarnock defender Ross Millen admits scoring the winner against Hearts on his Ladbrokes Premiership debut was surreal after coming close to quitting the game just months ago.
The right-back drilled a 73rd minute shot past goalkeeper Zdenek Zlamal as the visitors condemned Hearts to only their second league defeat at Tynecastle in 18 months.
The 24-year-old seized a rare chance to impress after Scotland international Stephen O’Donnell sustained a hamstring injury in training, and Millen was thrilled to cap a memorable afternoon with a goal.
And given that Millen considered hanging up his boots after departing League Two side Queens Park in the summer, he insists his weekend could not have gone any better.
He said “I’ve worked hard to get here. Whether it’s six months or six years – it doesn’t really matter.
“You want to go and perform. I was playing away to Albion Rovers last year and now I’m playing against Hearts for a team in the top three of the Premiership. It’s strange, really strange.
“I was chucking it in the summer, to be honest. I came out of Queens Park and had nothing.
“And I had fallen out of love with football. I thought I had done well at Queens Park but because of the way we finished, which wasn’t as well as the year before, people were not watching.
“But then I got an opportunity through an agent to come in on trial for a week and I did not bad and then went with them to La Manga for pre-season and the gaffer offered me six months.
“And I obviously snapped his hand off and I’ve just worked really hard.”
Hearts have now failed to score in any of their previous four matches and manager Craig Levein admits his team are missing more than just the quality offered by injured quartet Christophe Berra, Steven Naismith, Jon Souttar and Uche Ikpeazu.
He said: “It’s not just about good players being missing, it’s strength of character that’s missed sometimes more than the actual quality of the player.
“We’re missing people with strength of character, who’ve done things in the past, dealt with certain situations and know how to deal with them.
“Our solutions just now are generally younger players who haven’t had the experience and they’re not battle hardened and ready to cope.
“But it is what it is, there’s no point in bemoaning luck because luck usually comes back round to help when you need it.”
ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Press Association Sport Staff');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '9b3c8c78-4a6f-4a41-aa9a-16174429b9a2');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:club-news,paservice:sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Millen is back in love with football after scoring winner against Hearts'});
