Boyd the next Portsoy prodigal son?
Talk about a schoolboy’s dream.
At just 16 years and 107 days, Fletcher Boyd capped a dream week by scoring his first senior goal on his senior debut when he netted Aberdeen’s fourth in their rout of Hibernian in Edinburgh right in front of the visiting supporters.
Boyd, who last week helped the Aberdeen under-18 side win their league title, has also started scoring for the Scotland under-16s, having done so twice against Norway in Cyprus at the start of March. It has been quite the couple of months for the attacking midfielder who hails from the north-east village of Portsoy.
His stunning moment late on at Easter Road evoked memories of the last man from that small hamlet on the Moray Coast to explode onto the scene at Pittodrie.
In 1989, then co-managers Alex Smith and Jocky Scott handed Eoin Jess one of his early starts in the League Cup final against Rangers, he was two years older than Boyd is now and it was a game he didn’t look out of place in.
He went onto win three winners’ medals during a career that lit up Scottish Football. Had Jess not suffered a leg break in a Scottish Cup tie against Clydebank, who knows what level he would have reached. It stifled his rapid progress and by the time he was back up to speed, Aberdeen were on a downward trajectory.
However, Jess rightly takes his place in the club’s folklore and in Portsoy itself whilst in Boyd, the Aberdeen supporters have another local talent to get excited about, just like Jess all those years ago.
All four Aberdeen goals in Leith were full of quality and it has been clear that the current squad has underachieved in the Premiership this season.
What we saw in the capital was what the team is capable of on its day. It was interesting to hear Peter Leven using terms like “throwing the shackles off”.
Had the previous incumbents of the hotseat at Pittodrie this season been of a similar mind, perhaps they would be looking forward to European football again and not seeing out the campaign amongst the also-rans.
There has been much to point fingers at in Aberdeen this season, but, in Boyd and his team-mates in the youth academy such as Alfie Bavidge and Findlay Marshall, the club has to be commended.
Just maybe they have just unearthed the next prodigal son from Portsoy in the process.
