Ross Jack

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Ross Jack
Personal information
Full name	James Ross Jack
Date of birth	September 3, 1959 (1959-21-03) (age 48)
Place of birth	Avoch, Scotland
Playing position	Forward
Club information
Current club	Retired
Youth clubs
1974-1975	Ross County
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1975-1980 1979-1980 1979-1983 1983-1985 1985-1988 1987-1991 1991-1993 1992-1993 1992-1994 1993-1994	Everton → Cardiff City (loan) Norwich City Lincoln City Dundee Dunfermline Athletic Kilmarnock → Sligo Rovers (loan) Montrose Ayr United	001 0(1) 000 0(0) 056 (10) 060 (16) 038 0(4) 130 (46) 055 (13) 009 0(2) 018 0(0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

(James) Ross Jack (born March 21, 1959 in Avoch, Scotland) was a Scottish footballer. He is presently High Performance Football Coach at the Scottish Institute of Sport^[1], a position he has held since December 2001.

A striker, Jack began his career in the Highland Football League with Ross County where he made a handful of appearances in the 1974-75 season before joining Everton, initially as an apprentice before graduating to the professional ranks. He made only a solitary, goalscoring appearance, for Everton and, after a fruitless loan spell at Cardiff City, he joined Norwich City for £20,000 in December 1979. He would have to wait almost a year before making his Norwich debut against Ipswich Town in the League Cup in September 1980. In the summer of 1983, a fee of £15,000 secured his transfer to Lincoln City where he remained for the next two seasons.

In July 1985, he returned to Scotland to join Dundee. In October 1987, Dunfermline Athletic's manager Jim Leishman paid £15,000 to secure Jack's services and he made an instant impression, scoring on his debut in a 3-2 away defeat to Motherwell.^[2] In each of his three seasons at the club, Jack would finish as Dunfermline's leading scorer, his most successful season being the 1989-1990 campaign when he was the second highest goalscorer in the Scottish Premier League, his 16 league goals placing him just one goal behind John Robertson.^[3] In July 1991 a fee of £45,000 was sufficient to see Jack move to Kilmarnock. Following a brief loan sojourn to Sligo Rovers (January - March 1993), Jack was appointed player-manager of Montrose in March 1993. His spell would last only six months and in October 1993 he moved on to Ayr United before retiring from the professional game at the end of the 1993-1994 season.

[edit] Coaching career

Post retirement, Jack moved into coaching, primarily focusing with work with the Scottish Football Association (SFA), first as the SFA's Highlands and Islands area community development officer^[4] and then as the SFA's North of Scotland Football Development Officer. In October 2001 it was announced that he would leave this role to take up the position of High Performance Football Coach at the Scottish Institute of Sport, a role he commenced in December 2001 and maintains to this day. On his appointment, Jack was quoted as saying "this new role is one where I hope we can make a difference to the future prospects of Scottish football."^[5]

Whilst now in his late forties, Ross has continued to play football at a junior level, particularly in the North Caledonian Football League with Alness United^[6] and, in the summer months, with hometown Avoch.^[7]

In October 2007 there was speculation that Jack may make a return to Management with Ross County with The Scotsman quoting Jack as saying "he time could be right for me to get back into the game. I could think of no better club than Ross County to do that with. I'm a local boy and County have played a big part in my life."^[8] but the return did not materialise.

[edit] References