Michael Gardyne is certainly spoilt for choice when it comes to his best memories at Ross County.
Two Championship titles, three Challenge Cups, beating Celtic in two major semi-finals and reaching the top six in the Scottish Premiership.
But winning the League Cup five years ago today, in which he scored the opener and had a key role in the winner, will rank highly among any achievement in his career.
He holds numerous personal accolades in Staggie blue, being their leading goalscorer and appearance-maker, but team honours trump them all.
“When we get knocked down, we do seem to come back stronger,” said Gardyne. “It was well-documented that Dundee United, Rangers and Hearts, they didn’t come back from the Championship at the first time of asking. We did.
“I don’t think about the personal accolades too much. That might be when I retire. Things like man-of-the-matches, player of the month awards; my mum has got all those in a cabinet.
“It’s a team game. It’s not like boxing, where you’re on your own. Even winning the Challenge Cup, it means every bit as much having the winners’ medal instead of a silver medal.
“I’ve won trophies with so many different players that I can look at a match programme and say ‘that’s who I played with when we won that trophy’.
“We won that as a team. That’s definitely more special.”
Gardyne scored the opener for County, after Jackson Irvine seized on a loose ball in midfield and released his fellow midfielder to round Mark Oxley.
However, future County defender Liam Fontaine levelled the scores before the break, crashing in from just inside the 18-yard box.
In a game that to-and-fro’d in the second half, Gardyne admitted he was preparing himself for extra-time.
However, when Irvine played the ball out to him on the left flank, he would go on one final surge which would prove decisive
“I’d seen Schalky run to the front and Brian (Graham) liked hanging at the back post for his headers,” he said. “In my mind, it was just ‘get the ball in the box, don’t overhit it’.
“Martin Woods came running straight to me and Schalky, who’d got a tap-in on the goal-line, ran off like he’d just scored the best goal in the whole world.
“I remember thinking ‘you cheeky ***’ – I’ve just ran the length of the pitch and put in an unreal ball, you’ve ran by me straight to the fans. He didn’t even give me a high-five!
“I don’t think I went into the fans. Myself, Martin Woods, Ian McShane and Paul Quinn were going mental up and down the sidelines; Schalky was top off, in with the fans.
“He’s a great player and a great guy. We’ve always had a wee bit of banter about him.”
The 35-year-old, who celebrated the final with a family meal in his native Dundee before heading back to Dingwall the following day, is a club icon at Ross County
He has seven winners’ medals to his name and holds the appearance record at County with 436, across 13 years and four different spells.
“Professional footballers go through their careers and don’t make a final,” said Gardyne. “I’ve been lucky enough up to now, to get to the Scottish Cup final and the League Cup final.
“It was heartbreaking in 2010, obviously, and we didn’t do ourselves justice in the final against Dundee United. It does eat away at you. You think if you’re ever going to get that chance again.
“The worst feeling I remember was getting the loser’s medal in 2010. Seeing them lift the cup, you don’t want that feeling again.
“It’s a national cup final and it was my daughter’s birthday. It couldn’t have gone any better. It was very dreamy.”