The above line, delivered ruefully by Micheal O’Muircheartagh lamenting the unavailability of Jimmy Keaveney after the 1979 Leinster Final due to suspension, at the beginning of the Decade Of The Dubs video, translates as “Has anyone seen my Jimmy”? You suspect it’s a phrase Irish soccer fans will have to get used to uttering. Now read on…
Anybody who has visited this space with any regularity over the years will know of this corner’s fondness for a rebel. Whether it be Paul Carberry or Graham Geraghty or Trevor Brennan or Roy Keane. All incarnations of Chuck Norris, up close and personal.
James McClean, though, probably qualified as more thoroughbred in that sense than any of the others. For reasons that nobody would wish on anybody, mind you.
To get the perfunctory out of the way first, the Derry native is, first and foremost, an exceptionally gifted footballer. More than that, he has to be up there with the best advertisements for League Of Ireland football there has been. The domestic league is often derided for using the tagline #GreatestLeagueInTheWorld but McClean could and should be held up as the shining example of why it is.
Having cut his footballing teeth in his local environs in and around the Brandywell with the Candystripes, whether by accident or design, scraps for survival were something which became interwoven into the flame-haired flyer’s career. From Sunderland to Stoke to Wigan to West Brom, his has been a career spent firefighting. Though nothing encountered on a pitch could come near the amount of crap he has shipped off it.
Born in the Creggan area of Derry in 1989, McClean’s hinterland was the epicentre of The Troubles in the Oak Leaf County. Where, not only were there five fatalities in the British Army massacre of Republicans and Nationalists during their occupation of six of our counties on what will forever be known as Bloody Sunday, several members of the player’s family were also casualties of The Troubles.
Thus, he was of course well entitled to decline to wear a poppy around Remembrance Sunday. He has, on numerous occasions stated that he has no problem respecting casualties of the two World Wars, but expecting him – or anybody who lost loved ones to the actions of a foreign force – would be akin to asking the families of a 9/11 victim to wear something commemorating the Al Queda terrorists that took out the towers.
Thankfully, there is much more to Jimmy’s story than that which the small minded begrudgers choose to focus on. Most notably that, largely, he has let his football do the talking throughout what has been a stellar career for all the clubs he has represented and his country.
To the extent that, with utmost conviction, it would be attested that he has without doubt been the most influential and important Irish player of his generation. The cult hero that every era needs. Where once it was Liam Brady or Paul McGrath or Roy Keane before him.
Hence why the feeling is that his loss will not just be felt from the perspective of the rudimentary aspects of the game, also owing to the presence he exuded in the dressing room in around the team in general.
Speaking purely in football terms, there will always be players to step up. Indeed, it could be said they have begun to, in the guise of Evan Ferguson and Adam Idah and Chiedozie Ogbene and Michael Obefemi. Filling the leadership void may not be as easy.
Yes, you’d be looking to players like Matt Doherty, John Egan, Ferguson or Idah but whether any of that quartet could fill the void which will be left by the departure of our Jimmy remains to be seen.
For what’s done is done, what’s won is won, and what’s lost is lost and gone forever. All any of us can pray for is a bright brand new day. Whether on a field or doing one of the good deeds which often take place without fanfare or fuss, he will be of benefit to whatever path he takes upon retirement and a loss to whatever he leaves behind.