YOU CAN COUNT ON ME

Baldwin relishing Premiership chance after serious injury led him to plan for future in finance

AT just 21, Ross County captain Jack Baldwin suffered a careerthreatening injury that forced him to gaze into an abyss. Luckily, his knee healed yet the heavy side-dose of perspective has weighed heavily. Baldwin would later salve some of his underlying financial worries with a £500,000 transfer from Peterborough to Sunderland but he’s never lost sight of the bigger picture.

That’s why he’s branched out into a secondary role as a financial advisor, one who helps young footballers navigate the temptations and pitfalls of making fast cash with long-term security.

It was the defender’s capacity for looking beyond the obvious and the immediate that led to his switch to the Highlands last year.

The simpler choice would have been to stick to what he knew in the third tier of English football but when he heard the persuasive tones of Malky Mackay, he was intrigued.

‘I had a call with the gaffer and (assistant) Don Cowie,’ he recalls. ‘I spoke to my wife and said I wasn’t sure I could make the jump.

‘But as the weeks developed, I spoke to the manager again about his style and ambition, the project of the club.

‘It was a chance to make a clean break from England after 10 years, a chance to test myself against the likes of Celtic, Rangers and Hearts, all the top-end clubs.

‘It was a chance to see if I could achieve something special in the latter half of my career because I am not a spring chicken anymore.’

A retrospective two-game ban actually denied Baldwin the chance to participate in his team’s league and cup double-header against the Glasgow clubs at the tail end of last month but he continues to find the overall standard of the game here to be favourably comparable to what he left behind.

In Mackay, he also has a boss with English Premier League experience and a personality to match.

‘I would put him right up with the top managers I have worked with,’ he continues. ‘First and foremost for his man management, the way he interacts with you on a human level before any football talk.

‘He treats you as a human which is brilliant. Tactically he wants us to do the basics well, be hard to beat, be organised and be tough when we need to. And then express ourselves when we get on the ball.

‘It’s really good to work under and that has shown in our performances last season in particular when some of our football was brilliant towards the back end.

‘When we first spoke he described what he liked about my game and how, as a former centre-half, he could help me.’

Now 29, Baldwin knows he will probably never command the kind of fee sanctioned by Jack Ross to take him to Sunderland in 2018.

But he has opened up a door to a new line of work — and one that allows him to give something back.

He explains: ‘I signed up to an online platform called Life After Professional Sport during lockdown. They put on Zoom calls and webinars with property experts and Olympic athletes who had gone into business after their career.

‘Every week, they’d send out a newsletter detailing opportunities to work within sport and that’s where I found Gameplan. They are a financial services company that offer mortgages, financial protection and pension advice but they are made up of athletes either still involved or retired.

‘My career after football is something I have constantly thought about. I wouldn’t say it has been a big worry but, at 21, I suffered that big knee injury at Peterborough.

‘The surgeon said that if it wasn’t for the latest technology I would have had to call it a day.

‘This was a chance for me to get my head down and dedicate my time to something that would help me and also other people.

‘I have seen kids squander their money. The worst examples might be when you get a young EPL player on loan in League One.

‘The kid might be touted as the next big thing but next thing they are filtering down and before you know it they are playing non league. Suddenly they are having to get part-time jobs.’

More aesthetically pleasing is the surroundings to which Baldwin has decamped with his wife and two young children.

He adds: ‘I’m not a city boy, I kind of enjoy the outdoorsy side of things and this is a beautiful place to live.

‘It’s nice and quiet. You can get your head down and go out to the shops without being mobbed.

‘I’m not saying that happened every week at Sunderland but it was a massive club with a big fanbase. I lived half an hour outside of the city but I would be stopped talking to people in the street.

‘Being in the Highlands and Inverness, you are a bit more detached from the bigger Scottish cities but I don’t mind it.’

In the context of last season’s title race, Celtic fans still speak of the importance of Tony Ralston’s headed stoppage-time winner in Dingwall last December. It was Baldwin who headed County’s equalising goal earlier that night and he admits to relishing games against the champions and their forward players Kyogo Furuhashi, Jota and Liel Abada. ‘For little old me to come up and test myself against the best was a great opportunity,’ he adds.

‘The same goes for the young lads we get up on loan, too. They get to see the level they need to reach to be a top player.’