Why so serious? The A-League’s new joker isn’t here to muck around

Jason Cummings doesn’t sympathise with the Joker, so to speak. But, like Batman’s nemesis, he does know how it feels to be misunderstood.

The new Central Coast Mariners striker is a little obsessed with the comic book supervillain. The tattoo of Heath Ledger on his left thigh is a dead giveaway, as is the smile permanently etched on his right hand, which he uses to cover his mouth to celebrate the goals he has scored for clubs like Rangers, Hibernian and Nottingham Forest.

New Central Coast Mariners star Jason Cummings hasn’t flown out to play in Australia for a laugh.Credit: Rhett Wyman

“I always liked the bad guys, man,” Cummings tells the Herald and The Age in his thick Scottish twang. “I like the Joker, him as a character, he’s a very complicated man.”

Cummings, 26, also has Joker pyjamas and Joker slippers. He’s even painted a portrait of him.

“I started painting a year ago, just blank canvases with acrylic paint. Football can get hectic, especially if it’s not going well, you have a few bad games and that – a little release, painting, it’s brilliant.

Painting is Jason Cummings’ relief from the stress of professional football.

“That’s something the Joker would do: sit in a dark room painting.”

His favourite Joker? “I love Heath, man. What a performance,” he says. “Even the way he prepared for it, locking himself in hotel rooms. He basically died for the cause, huh? Genuinely.”

That was until 2019’s grittier Joker, with Joaquin Phoenix in the eponymous title role.

“Absolutely smashed it. That last one was incredible,” Cummings says.

“Probably more in-depth – they took it away from the actual typical superhero stuff with capes and it was deeper, more real life-like. You’re almost relating to the Joker, the way that people would just ignore him in the street and stuff. If you’re higher up like Bruce Wayne, they get all the good press, and he’s just forgotten about.

“I cannae relate to him because what he does is right mad, but in that movie especially, you feel for him, which is credit to Joaquin Phoenix.”

So why exactly is Cummings, who shot to prominence with a brace against Liverpool in the FA Cup two years ago, playing in the A-League and not at a much higher level? There’s a few reasons, including his Australian heritage, but the main one can be traced back to a night in Glasgow in December.

Jason Cummings is just a tad obsessed with the Joker.Credit: Open Goal

It was a live Christmas event held by Open Goal, a popular Scottish football podcast. Among the guests were Paolo Di Canio, Graham Souness, and Cummings, who strutted out on stage in front of almost 15,000 people dressed head-to-toe as the Joker.

“It was a great laugh,” he says.

“I’d probably hold my hands up, I didnae ask for permission to do that from the club … I went on and done my little cameo as the Joker and I came home straight after the show.”

Dundee manager James McPake claimed Cummings was “unfit to train” the next morning, cementing his perception in the UK as an out-of-control larrikin and habitual line-stepper who would never realise his potential.

Jason Cummings at Dundee.Credit: Getty

“It’s completely untrue,” Cummings says, correcting the record for the first time on his departure from the Scottish Premiership club.

“It was frustrating for me because I didnae really get the chance to have my say, and my side of the story was completely different. The manager wasnae really having me. He didnae want to play me for some reason. I was at training on time … and they just sent me home, said I was unfit to train, which was just a lie - even the players and people will back me up for that. They just made it into a big thing, like ‘Cummings is unfit, Cummings is this’, I just feel like so it made it easier for them to get rid of me, which has worked out perfectly for me.”

It’s easy to understand why that perception of Cummings exists. Like the time he threw a TV through a window while on loan at Peterborough United. Or the time he bombed a teammate’s interview at Shrewsbury Town by marching past the camera in his underwear. Or his alter-ego, with a nickname not suitable for a family publication, who engaged in an impromptu wrestling match on the sofa in the clubrooms at Hibernian with a bandage wrapped around his head and his nickname scrawled across his chest.

“When it circulated about us signing him, I had 50 per cent of people texting me saying ‘don’t touch him’, and another 50 per cent texted me saying ‘top guy, don’t listen to all the rubbish’,” says Mariners coach Nick Montgomery.

“We did our due diligence. I rang people I know and trust in Scotland and England who played with him and been around him and the feedback was the same from everybody: top guy, up for a laugh, teammates love him, very talented, hasn’t reached his potential, but has probably done a few silly things that interfered with the perception of who he really is.”

Cummings won’t be classified as a foreigner in the A-League. He has Australian citizenship through his mother, who was born here, and wants to follow in the footsteps of another Scot-turned-Aussie, Martin Boyle, his former teammate at Hibs.

“He’s the one that set the pathway for me, getting into the Socceroos and doing well. Hopefully I can do that too,” he says.

He has previously spoken to Graham Arnold’s assistant Rene Meulensteen about his ambitions.

“Nothing really came of it. I feel like now I’ve got a better opportunity out here, we’re in the same timezone for a start so [Arnold] can see me play over here, what I’m all about.”

Montgomery has little doubt that Cummings has the talent to play at international level.

“No doubt he’s got the quality,” he says. “A big reason we managed to get him out here was he’s got that ambition to play for the Socceroos. He should be playing at big clubs like Nottingham Forest, Rangers – for me that’s the minimum level he should be at, but lucky for us, we’re pinching ourselves we’ve managed to bring him over.”

So far, Cummings seems to be living his best life in Australia. He had two goals in his first four games for the Mariners and has endeared himself to fans across the country by calling out the A-League’s controversial mid-game pauses for TV ad breaks.

He’s also bought himself a silver Volkswagon Kombi van to drive around the Central Coast. Above all else, he feels as if he has the full backing of a coach who understands him, which is a welcome change to what he was used to in Scotland.

“It’s easy to point the finger at me if the team starts doing bad or if I start playing poor. First thing they’ll do is say, ‘Oh, Cummings is a joker. He doesnae work hard enough’. Which isnae the case,” he says.

Jason Cummings has played in some big games, including this Old Firm derby for Rangers in 2018.Credit: Getty

“I wouldn’t get to where I am if I was just out all the time, pissed about every day. When it’s serious football, game day and training, I take that stuff serious.

“But whenever something happens, it’s easy to point the finger. I’m just a scapegoat. But the gaffer here [Montgomery], he’s straight up, he tells the truth and he believes in me, man. I feel like I’m going to fit in well here and score loads of goals.”

And have a bit of fun along the way?

“For sure, but you cannae force it,” Cummings says. “I do a few stupid things here and there – it’s just the way I am, the way I was brought up, in a [public housing] scheme in Saughton in Edinburgh, there were a lot of characters where I’m from.

“But I feel like when a lot of people meet me, they’re expecting me to be crazy, mental, funny … And I’m like, ‘alright mate, how are you?’ I donnae walk about every day ... dancing about and doing stupid things, man. I’m just a normal guy.

“Maybe when I was younger, 18, 19, but I feel like I’ve grown up a lot lately.”

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