JACK ROSS left for his summer holiday happy and content to be manager of St Mirren and arrived home a fortnight later with the exact same feeling.

And yet in-between the much-needed family break at the end of what must have been an exhausting season, Dundee asked him to come to the Premiership and be their manager.

So keen were they to land one of Scotland most talented young managers that John Nelms, the managing director at Dens Park, flew out to Spain to get the deal done.

Ross’s head was turned. After all, he would be going up a league to a bigger club with more money. However, it didn’t take long for him to realise St Mirren was the perfect club for him at this stage of his career.

“That [Dundee’s interest] was something I hadn’t envisaged happening because I was quite settled where I was,” he admitted when speaking for the first time about his decision.

“Maybe I should take it as a compliment but I haven’t thought too much about it. Probably the best way to sum it up was that I left the country 100% content to be with St Mirren and I returned home feeling the same way.”

“Was there a dilemma? That’s human nature. Because of the emotions involved in football, particularly where fans are concerned, it’s too easy to think that everything is black and white but we’re human beings and there are all these external things to be taken into consideration.

“But deep down the biggest thing for me is that I really enjoy working for St Mirren. The facilities are great and that’s important for managers – I walk into our training ground each morning and enjoy being there.

“We’ve done a lot of work to it in the last six to seven months and that also gave me something to think about, as well as the personal aspects of the equation which had to be considered as well.”

Ross did rather buck a trend. There are not too many managers who would opt to stay in the Championship when a Premiership job was theirs to take.

However, those fortunate enough to be happy in their work tend to have good lives.

Why change something that ain’t broken?

Ross said: “Ultimately, I felt comfortable about continuing doing the same job. I said, when I took the job in October, that I felt I could take Saints into the Premiership and everyone laughed, given that we were bottom of the table.

“We stayed up but I don’t feel that I’ve done a good job there yet and I won’t feel that way until I can get them into the top division.

“I know the club is capable of that because I played for them there. Our fan base has also shown, towards the end of last season, that we belong there but there’s a lot of work still to do.

“Dundee was a big thing to consider and I knew that, potentially, I was taking a gamble because things can change really quickly in football – we could have a really bad start to next season and my stock would fall again.

“But you also need to have faith in yourself and what you do and that an opportunity will come again and I hope that doesn’t come across as me being arrogant but that’s how I reached my decision in the end.”