TO SAY THAT Alan Power had an inauspicious start at Kilmarnock would be putting it mildly.
For a man who would become a fan-favourite within a few months, his debut was by no means a sign of what was to come.
Power made his bow in a League Cup game in July 2017 against lowly Ayr United, who defied their status as a third-tier club by winning 1-0 against their top-flight opponents.
After the Irish midfielder was replaced in the 75th minute of the shock defeat, Killie fans were left decidedly underwhelmed by the new addition. The early indications certainly didn’t suggest that he might go on to collect the club’s Player of the Season award.
“I’m sure Alan would admit that things didn’t start too well for him here, and he was left out of the team for a while after that,” explains Sandy Armour, editor of the Killie Hippo fanzine.
“He was well off the pace. But he eventually got back in and he has been a revelation under Steve Clarke. He’d be the first name on the teamsheet these days for a lot of fans.”
Power, who was selected by supporters as Kilmarnock’s top performer in 2017-18, has retained that status for the current campaign. Last weekend, for the second year in a row, the 31-year-old was again named Player of the Season.
And for Kilmarnock, this has been no ordinary season. With five games remaining, they occupy third place in the Scottish Premiership. If they’re still there by the time the campaign concludes with a home game against Rangers on 19 May, the club will be celebrating its first top-three finish since 1966.
Alan Power’s back-to-back individual awards mean that a Dubliner has been Kilmarnock’s standard-setter for the third successive year. Like Power, Gary Dicker ended his first full season as a Killie player by earning the Player of the Season honour for 2016-17.
The pair have been instrumental in midfield for the Rugby Park outfit. In December, Dicker marked his 100th appearance for the club by captaining them to a 2-0 victory against Livingston.
“The two boys complement each other very well in the middle of the park, with Dicker in more of a holding role, reading the game well and breaking up opposition attacks,” says Sandy Armour.
“Power is an all-round midfielder who works really hard, looks comfortable with the ball at his feet and provides a good link between defence and attack. It’s just a pity we can’t turn the clock back five years because Killie fans would love to see them here for a long time more.”
As things stand, 32-year-old Dicker is contracted to Kilmarnock until the summer of 2020. Power was recently rewarded with a three-year deal that will take him beyond his 34th birthday.
Having gained almost all of his professional playing experience in non-league football in England, Power has thrived in Scotland since leaving Lincoln City two years ago.
Nottingham Forest was his first port of call in the UK. Regular first-team football there proved elusive, and the two-year spell that followed at Hartlepool United produced just six substitute appearances in League One.
The former Ireland U19 international then dropped down to the National League. After a season at Rushden & Diamonds, he began a six-year stint in Lincoln that culminated with a memorable season in 2016-17.
As well as helping the club to achieve promotion back to the Football League, he was central to a remarkable run to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. Lincoln recorded upset victories over Ipswich Town, Brighton & Hove Albion (a game in which he scored) and Burnley, before eventually being knocked out by Arsenal.
Power’s contribution brought him to the attention of Lee McCulloch, who was in charge of Kilmarnock at the time. However, the aforementioned difficult debut in Ayr was indicative of the club’s struggles as a whole. With Power left out of the team, Killie then failed to win any of their first eight games in the 2017-18 Scottish Premiership season.
When McCulloch and the club subsequently parted company, Power marked his first league start by helping them to end their winless run at the expense of Partick Thistle. Steve Clarke, McCulloch’s successor, oversaw a significant improvement in results. They finished the season in fifth, with Power flourishing under Jose Mourinho’s former assistant at Chelsea.
“There’s every chance Alan Power wanted to go on holiday last summer and instead sent a non-football-playing lookalike to start for Killie in the [League] Cup,” Craig Fowler wrote in The Scotsman newspaper in March 2018.
“There is little other rational explanation — apart from Steve Clarke’s magical transformative powers, of course — to explain how someone would look so out of his depth against League One Ayr United and then go on to have a sustained spell in the early winter months, where he was literally Killie’s man of the match in every game.”
While Gary Dicker’s pre-Kilmarnock career brought him as high as a Championship play-off semi-final, he too endured tough times before establishing himself as a key member of a Kilmarnock side leading the pursuit of the Old Firm of Celtic and Rangers.
Released by Brighton in 2013 after a defeat to a Crystal Palace side who secured promotion to the Premier League, Dicker spent much of the following season without a club. Yet after spells in League Two with Rochdale, Crawley Town and Carlisle United, the former UCD midfielder has also made the most of his opportunity at Kilmarnock.
Proposing Dicker as a candidate for the PFA Scotland Players’ Player of the Year award, football journalist Gabriel McKay recently described the ex-Ireland U21 international as “the heart and soul of [Steve] Clarke’s side, the player without whom Kilmarnock suddenly look less assured, less resolute.
“He doesn’t score or assist, but if you want a distillation of the Steve Clarke philosophy at Kilmarnock, you just have to watch Gary Dicker quietly doing all the right things.”
Experiencing European football would have seemed a remote prospect for both Alan Power and Gary Dicker this time three years ago. As Dicker was beginning to settle into a Kimarnock side who needed a play-off to avoid relegation, Power was part of a Lincoln City team who laboured to a mid-table finish in England’s fifth tier.
Third place this season will guarantee a Europa League place for Kilmarnock, who haven’t competed in Europe in 18 years. Their bid to end that wait resumes next Saturday against a fourth-placed Aberdeen outfit who they lead on goal difference.
Should Steve Clarke’s side manage to do so, expect the Dublin duo in midfield to be credited with vital roles.
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