Northern Ireland international Brad Lyons hails ‘best week’ of life, meeting newborn son and scoring cup winner
Brad Lyons reflected on the best week of his life after firing Kilmarnock into the Premier Sports Cup quarter-finals and dedicating the winning goal to his newborn baby.
The midfielder missed the previous weekend’s draw with Hibernian to be with wife Aishlyn as she went into labour and spent much of last week in hospital.
But with son Theo set to go home for the first time, Lyons was back in action against Dundee United on Sunday and netted the deciding goal in a 2-1 victory to set up a last-eight clash with St Mirren.
“It was the best week of my life,” the 28-year-old said. “It was the scariest at the start but Aishlyn pulled through for me.
“That feeling of holding the wee man in my arms was just incredible.
“Aishlyn then said ‘go and do it for me and Theo at the weekend’ and thankfully I could.”
Lyons had envisaged being able to face Hibernian the previous weekend but the birth was not straightforward and his absence meant Ethan Brown was handed a debut at Easter Road.
“The gaffer and the club were really, really good,” the Northern Ireland international said. “I can’t thank them enough.
“It got to the Saturday and I was going to play right centre-half. But me and Ethan Brown had worked all week on him playing there in case I couldn’t.
“Aishlyn was supposed to go in for an induction on the Saturday, so we were hoping if the baby came then that I could travel through to Edinburgh for the game on Sunday. But it just didn’t work out that way.
“It was actually a long haul before the baby arrived. Although we went in for the induction on Saturday, the wee man wasn’t born until the wee hours of Wednesday. It was a bit of a scary one but I won’t go into too much detail.
“The gaffer was absolutely brilliant with me, he just told me to keep him updated.
“I told him I didn’t want to miss the birth of my first child. That’s a memory that will last forever.
“As it turned out, Ethan was incredible in the game and the team got a good result, so that made it better.
“Ethan was brilliant again against Dundee United, so I’ve already got the baby to thank for getting me out of playing right centre-half and going back into midfield!”
Lyons missed a number of training sessions during the week but was eager to face United.
“I had such a feelgood factor and felt so happy going into the game,” he said.
“I came in and did a bit of running on my own on Thursday, then trained with the squad on Friday and Saturday.
“To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I would start because the boys had played so well against Hibs. Thankfully I got my chance and I was able to repay the gaffer.”