The Malága striker on his family’s remarkable journey to Spain, training with Cristiano Ronaldo and his hopes for a full Scotland call-up despite the frustration of being dropped by the U19s

The Harpers had been on the road for 21 days when the engine failed 1,786 miles from where the journey began and still more than 100 from their destination, so they just set up home there. The family joke about how the Scots arrived by caravan and by chance: a fireman, a nurse and their children stranded in a vehicle they could not afford to fix, selling it and starting a new life where they had been left: John, Tracey, Ryan, eight, and Emma, seven.

And then Jack arrived – a tale that, told with a grin and a little help from Ryan, unfolds like some 20th-century Spanish nativity scene, as if it was all meant to be.

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“They used to come on holiday and thought it was a good place to bring up the next set of kids,” Jack explains. “They had me on the way to Spain and, about six months later, I was born in the centre of Málaga, right next to the cathedral. My mum still talks about it. They didn’t know where the hospitals were, didn’t speak Spanish and had no way of communicating; they were expecting a baby, looking for a hospital, asking everyone, but had no idea what anyone said. And it would’ve been a bank holiday, too: I was born on Día de Andalucía.”

So they searched, increasingly fraught. It was 28 February 1996, a leap year. “They ended up in a private hospital; my dad probably regrets that,” he says. Nearly 23 years on, Harper plays football at La Rosaleda, barely a mile from there. He is, says Marca, a “revelation”, scorer of the goal his coach wants shown at the academy; the striker who is leading Málaga, third in the second tier, in their attempted return to La Liga; a former Real Madrid forward and not-very-foreign foreigner who is a local hero, an idol, according to the newspaper whose offices are a goalkick from the ground in the city where he was born.

The family no longer have a caravan – “that would be the dream,” Harper says – and they moved to nearby Fuengirola, living on Málaga street. “There’s an Iceland [store] in Málaga. Now and again, when I deserve one, I do like an Irn-Bru,” he smiles, but his diet was mostly Mediterranean, his environment too, and he became as Spanish as British. You can hear it in his accent; Scottish in one language, malagueño in the other. “It was school then football – in Spanish – then a switch in my head when I got home.”

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Like Ryan, who played for nine Spanish clubs before sustaining a knee injury, and younger brother Mac, forced out by back problems, Harper could play, which took him to Madrid at 13 and a meeting with Cristiano Ronaldo. A lesson, too. “I took a picture. I was tiny; it’s funny looking at that. I’m a fan – he’s the hardest worker, he was always there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen his car move. If it was easy everyone would do it. He’s obsessed.”

Harper does extra shooting and sessions in a hyperbaric chamber – “like a spaceship” – and at Madrid he progressed, seeing the first team more often. “At 17-18, I trained with them a bit. Maybe the manager wants extra men; you play the ones who didn’t get on at the weekend, or you play the centre-back, simulating the striker they’ll be up against. We were workers. You go, play, come back, we weren’t told much. But every year I’d get closer.”

Every year people would be more aware, too. “I had Twitter and people messaged me every now and again, going, ‘Are you actually Scottish?’ I got my first call-up at 15. We went to Largs.”

There he was different. “The only Scottish people I really speak to are my family, I don’t have friends there, so I didn’t have the patter. Even playing, they’d say words I wasn’t sure about. I felt like they’d observe me a bit more, keep their distance, thinking, ‘He doesn’t even speak English’, or, ‘His attitude won’t be good because he’s from a big club’. I just wanted to blend in, play for my country. The style was different, too.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Harper in action for Real Madrid during a Uefa Youth League match in 2014. Photograph: Angel Martínez/Real Madrid via Getty Images

Perhaps that crystallised at under‑19 level when the then coach, Ricky Sbragia, left Harper out, seeking a more physical, taller team – even though he was already over 6ft. Sbragia said that while Harper was “exceptionally gifted”, he was a “luxury” who could “float” for Madrid whereas Scotland needed discipline, insisting: “We can’t carry him.” He has since admitted being at fault, conceding: “My choice of words was not exactly brilliant.”

Harper would rather say nothing – but it stung. “I was hurt not to be in. I thought I deserved to go and I’m not sure why he didn’t want me. I wouldn’t class myself as a luxury player. Ask anyone nowadays, the first thing they’d say is I’m a hard worker. He’s in his rights to not take a player [but] I think he was a bit unlucky with his words. He should have talked to me. I never got a call. I was a bit upset just reading things in the press. But things like that made me stronger, more prepared.”

Amid the fall-out, the prospect of Scotland losing Harper to Spain appeared more real.When asked what his parents, from Barrhead, would have thought had he ever chosen Spain, his brother Ryan shoots back, laughing: “Adoption!” Harper takes over: “They would have supported me through anything but I’ve always known my dad would have dreamed of one of his kids playing for Scotland. I wasn’t asked and I don’t think you would be; you’d just get the call-up and then have a decision to make. But I always thought of playing for Scotland.”

Could that dream be close now? “I haven’t had a call, and no one’s asked me for tickets, but I’d like to think they know what I’m doing,” he says. “I think they have to, playing the way I’m playing and the club I’m at.”

As scouting trips go, it is a nice one, heading south to the sunshine, but it could have been closer. Harper has been back in Málaga only two years, arriving home via the UK, having, aged 19, been convinced that playing in England would benefit his career. He is still convinced, even though things did not go as planned. Injury intervened, with internal bleeding on a knee keeping him out for six months and causing him to fail a medical.

“I’ve never really told anyone but I was going to Stoke and in the end they never signed me because of injury,” he says. “I spoke with [the then manager] Mark Hughes, everything was done. They’d watched me all year and had a plan for me, they wanted me in the first team quickly. But the doctors said no.”

Ryan had to break the news. “That wasn’t fun,” he says, quietly. “Yeah,” Harper adds, “that was heartbreaking. I’ve not cried much in my life and that was a sad day.”

Instead he moved to Brighton, grateful to have had support through rehabilitation, but limited to just over a dozen games for the under-23s. “I didn’t have much time to show what I was worth but it prepared me. Growing up at Madrid, I’d say I have the tiki-taka side, but I still had to man up and England gave me that. It was a learning curve and more than football, it made me a stronger person.”

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After six years away, a basement room at his parents’ awaited, aged 20. Harper joined Málaga, leading the B team to promotion as the first team endured relegation, offering opportunity – handed to him by Juan Muñiz.

“I’ll never forget this manager,” he says. “The year you break through in professional football, you need trust. In his first talk with me he said if managers didn’t give chances to youth‑teamers, there’d never be any footballers. You have to break through somewhere.”

Harper broke through. He has started 17 of 24 games with Málaga. The pressure is building and he admits that “fun” might not be the word, aware that in football “a lot of people’s emotions are in play, even more this season because I’m from Málaga”, but it’s going well.

“The club’s aim is the same as mine: reach the first division. They deserve that, they’re one of Spain’s bigger clubs. Last year was a nightmare and I think players like me have brought a bit of fresh air. We play with heart and the fans appreciate that. I’d like to think I’m one of their own – for the Guiri Army [Málaga’s British supporters’ club] and for the Spanish. They’ve sung my name and I get a bit more affection because they know I’m from here.”

Just one doubt, then: when he scores, what does he say? “Gol” or “Yes”? “Erm, tough one … I don’t know. I think my mind doesn’t have a language. But I probably shout ‘Gol’ because that’s what all the fans are shouting.”

Gol de Harper, the kid who came in a caravan.