Jack urges Pars to gear up

Former Pars striker Jack de Gier returned for the Scottish Cup tie against Rangers. He gave his opinions to the official website:-

2001: Jack with Davie Nicholls and Gus MacPherson

NEC Nijmegen striker, Jack de Gier, arrived at East End Park at the end of June 2001 and scored five goals in 14 matches before returning to Holland to join FC Twente.  He continues to follow the fortunes of Dunfermline Athletic very closely and after watching the Pars knock Rangers out of the Tennents Scottish Cup, Jack joked:-

"I will have to come back every week!  It was a nice game to see.  It went 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 - there maybe would be some problems, then they hit the crossbar from Ferguson.  It is good for Dunfermline and good for their confidence to take into the league.

"Still every week I watch Dunfermline's scores and get sad of it sometimes. No goals and then three against Rangers so we should just play Rangers every week.

"I like Dunfermline and still follow Dunfermline.  That is why I come back.  I like it when I see you win and make the supporters happy again.  I was just talking to Dorus (de Vries) about everything and he says 'it is a great club. a great city' and he likes it very much.  That is my feeling about Dunfermline also and I would like to see them stay in the Premierleague."

Back in the summer Jim Leishman sounded Jack out when he heard the Den Haag goalkeeper might be interested in coming to Scotland.

"I knew Dorus was a very good goalkeeper and it was surprising that he did not have a team at that moment. To be honest I scout for NEC Nijmegen and his name was well known at our team but we were afraid that our first team goalkeeper had too great a grip on his place."

Jack explained that Dorus was too good to be a second choice or back up keeper:-

"Dorus is a first goalkeeper who can wins game for you. I was hoping that I would see him play against Rangers but I heard he played well against Celtic, so it is good for Dunfermline."

Jack who is 38, said that he was surprised with the unfamiliar names in the Rangers team. The only player that he recognised from the Dutch League was Thomas Buffel who although Belgian played some while with Feyenoord.

"The names - well Barry Ferguson I know but only Kris Boyd is recognisable because Nijmegen had considered him at one time."

The win over Rangers has the potential to dramatically alter Dunfermline's season suggested Jack:-

"When you are not scoring goals, and you start scoring goals against Rangers confidence has to grow out of games like that. They had nothing to lose because it was a Cup game; if you win that game as it happened - it was close - you can go on into the league. Do your thing and when you win once, you know that you can do it and it gets the team up and they can go for it.  Maybe the next game you lose but you have found out that you can do it.

"I am Assistant Coach for an amateur team and I always say that, lose two games, three games doesn't matter.  Do what you have to do, work hard and hopefully the other team that is nearest - focus on them and see how they are doing in the league.  You can see their defeats and suddenly realise 'they are struggling' - now we can catch them. You have to be positive."

Jack will leave the names of some Dutch based players that might be of interest to Dunfermline.  He says that there are other players like Dorus de Vries who haven't got a club and might welcome a chance to use Dunfermline as a shop window to display their skills.

"Sometimes for your career you need to take one step back to go two steps forward.  I did that at Nijmegen.  They gave me the opportunity and back then I scored 11 goals before the winter break and they said 'listen you did us a favour to come and play, now we will give you a contract'.