How unhappy Scottish striker Jason Cummings became the Socceroos’ World Cup wildcard

Talent? Plenty!

If he held a paintbrush, he’d produce paintings worth staring at. As is the case though, with many creative types, there’s a streak.

Cummings’ streak isn’t malicious. He has fun, but that fun is more of the mad variety. Harmless to others, but it’s hurt his career.

Cummings has swung from chandeliers. No, he literally has. Once trashed his own apartment on Snapchat. There’s the tattoo of the Joker’s teeth on his hand. Great party trick and goal celebration.

Little bits and pieces that form a valuable mystique. If you paint or make music.

Not so much in football’s stern world of conformity where Cummings has rarely settled. Seven clubs in six years. Somehow, he’s days away from playing in the biggest tournament humanity has to offer. The reason is in keeping with the chaos.

The random factor of a piece of floating disc in the neck of Mariners legend Matt Simon is why.

Without that, Cummings almost certainly wouldn’t be in Qatar. He’d be an artist floating in relative oblivion, left to wonder what if.

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Cummings grew up in Edinburgh and scored a mountain of goals throughout his youth career. By 2016 he was a fixture in Hibernian’s line up, pushing for promotion from the desperate lands of the Scottish second division.

This is when Neil Lennon, a Northern Irishman who has been around the football block a few times playing and managing Celtic, crossed paths with Cummings. Lennon took over at Hibs and immediately knew he had a live one in Cummings.

“He’s a character, that’s for sure!” Lennon tells News Corp.

Lennon never shied away from spraying his players. One day Hibs were down 1-0 to a team they were supposed to belt, and Lennon let rip at halftime.

“We were awful and I’m going through a few of them,” Lennon says.

“And all of a sudden Jason just burps! Mid-sentence! I went ballistic and he’s like, what, what have I done wrong?”

Of course, Cummings went out and scored in the second half to rescue a point. Lennon never had to reign Cummings in. But there were moments of worry.

“He wasn’t doing anything bad like drinking or anything,” Lennon says. “Just always knocking about. Some games he was sloppy. Never really fell out with him, half the stuff he was doing was quite funny.”

Hibs got promoted that season off the back of 23 goals from Cummings, which meant offers streamed in for the striker. Lennon didn’t want him to go, but Nottingham Forest in England lured him away with a seven-figure transfer fee.

“I didn’t think he was ready to go to Forest, too young and too loose,” Lennon says. “But he wanted to go.”

It could have gone two ways from there. Cummings could have scored plenty for Forest and got a bigger deal in the English Premier League. Or he could have stopped scoring, and drifted.

Cummings drifted.

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Nick Montgomery, the Central Coast Mariners coach and his assistant Sergio Raimundo only needed to watch two minutes of footage to say yes.

“We just looked at each other and said get him out here! You could tell he was class,” Montgomery says.

The A-League’s poorest club had been offered Cummings because he was unhappy in Scotland. The drifting had gone on for five years from club to club, on loan.

There were good moments, like the two goals scored for Shrewsbury in an FA Cup game against Liverpool in front of millions on TV.

But there were down moments. Cummings was filmed on Snapchat inexplicably trashing his own apartment. Hard-nosed professionalism was missing. He celebrated the good times, but even then, it came with a reputational hinge. Too much? When Cummings helped Dundee clinch promotion in May 2021 to Scotland’s Premier League, he led the party by swinging from a chandelier.

Montgomery at the Mariners could see past the reputation.

“A lot of other people said don’t sign him, he’s an idiot,” Montgomery says.

”But you look at the stuff he did, he didn’t kill anybody. Celebrating a win swinging off a chandelier, it didn’t help him but he hadn’t done anything bad.

“However, perception is perception.”

Fate allowed Montgomery to chase Cummings. Club legend Simon was forced to retire with a detached piece of disc in his neck causing excruciating pain. The Mariners could afford to get an injury replacement. He had to have an Aussie passport. He had to be a striker. He had to be cheap. To furnish their club, the Mariners shop on Gumtree.

Cummings, as Scottish as haggis and the Proclaimers, had an Aussie mum. Could get a passport. He wanted a new adventure. Didn’t care if it was for peanuts.

“He came out for virtually nothing,” Montgomery says. “He gave up money to come to us.”

And as soon as he arrived, Cummings took to the culture of the Mariners straight away, as was his creative streak. As the Mariners punch above their weight again against the rich boys of the A-League, Cummings has been a prolific scorer (12 goals) and provider (8 assists) in 26 games in 2022.

His cult status meant Socceroos selection grew organically, but there were still concerns about his reputation. Would he fit into the Socceroos culture of brotherly love? Graham Arnold relented, and introduced Cummings to the squad in September for the New Zealand friendlies. There were no hiccups. Or burps.

“He’s matured in the timing of what he’s doing,” Montgomery says, “but also let him let his hair down because that’s his personality, can’t cage him up all the time.”

Kye Rowles, the calm defender who has also come from the clouds to make the Socceroos squad, was with the Mariners when Cummings walked through the door.

“You have obviously seen the internet, you‘re not safe anywhere … but he was pretty much the polar opposite of what has been said on Twitter,” Rowles told News Corp in Doha.

“He is a top bloke and a hard worker. The boys love him and he is just a great character to have in the change room, he is always joking and he‘s a great bloke to have around you.”

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The dream scenario in this tale is that Cummings enters the fray against France in the 78th minute, scores a late equaliser and runs to the corner flag, hand covering his mouth to show off his Joker teeth tattoo.

In more ways than one, the World Cup needs a bit of mug lair about it after the heavy fog of controversy that has dominated the build-up.

There are no guarantees any of that happens, of course.

But a year ago, Cummings sat in Scotland miserable, at the crossroads of a career turning sour. Fate intervened, and creativity has done the rest.

His old coach, Lennon, one of the few to harness the comedian and goal scorer, will watch from Cyprus, on a break from management, but paying close attention to Cummings in particular.

“What I like about him, he’s been around, seen the game at the top end and the bottom and he’s asked himself – what’s for me?” Lennon says.

“I’m delighted for him, he’s a really good kid”