Did you ever notice how one occurrence in life can often lead your thoughts to somewhere else entirely? Recently, the mind here was drawn to when my sister had a set of football goals in her garden when her ‘kids’ were, well… Kids.
You know the type, plastic, collapsable, built in such a way that the tops of the posts could be slipped off to convert the contraption from GAA goals to soccer ones.
What nobody could have envisaged at the time, though, was that three pillars of what my late father referred to as Farrell’s (My sister’s married name) Academy would end up in Republic Of Ireland squads at different times.
My nephew, Ian Byrne (U-17 and U-19), Conor Keeley (Universities) and his brother Josh, who, having made his way up through all the underage ranks, this week got his first call up to the Republic Of Ireland senior squad from manager Heimar Halgrimmson.
Thus putting him in line to be the fourth Meathman – and second Dunboyner – to be capped at Senior level. Following in the stud prints of Darragh Lenihan and Jamie McGrath and Evan Ferguson.
Warning: Complete bias incoming. It’s about time my neighbour over the wall got the call to the highest level. After all, he was one of the mainstays of Jim Crawford’s Irish U-21 side who went as close to qualifying for a major underage tournament as any Irish group have in a very long time. If not ever.
Besides that, though, if Josh had never been near an underage squad, his inspirational heroics with Leyton Orient this season have meant that not selecting him would have been counterproductive and laughable if it would not also have qualified as insulting.
As if to underline all of the above, the boy next door – almost literally – pulled out his penalty shootout party piece less than 24 hours after getting the oddball Icelandic’s invitation.
This time on the biggest stage of them all as Richie Wellens’ men completed an enthralling two legged victory over the obdurate and admirable Stockport County in the League One play off semi final second leg.
Thereby ensuring that, after the San Siro in Milan (pre season friendly with parent club Tottenham) and Eastlands (FA Cup outing with the O’s against Manchester City) Josh will be able to tick Wembley Stadium off the ‘venues performed at’ list.
It will always be a little bitter sweet for the occupant of this seat that none of the Farrell Academy graduates ever graced Croke Park. Looking to the future though, at least the disabled viewing facilities in the Aviva Stadium are eons ahead of the aforementioned other venue. Not that such would be much of a job.
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