News of Tim Clancy’s contract extension at Drogheda United hammered home to me how management is a young man’s game.
Liam Buckley is 61, Ollie Horgan is 53 but after that the Premier Division is strictly a 30s and 40s only club with Keith Long the next oldest at 47.
People often ask me why I never ventured into that side of the game, but I toyed with it after retiring.
Management though, not coaching. Coaching is too structured, too many manuals, too many cones.
I like dealing with people, understanding their difficulties and ironing out issues but the truth is I’d lost trust in football.
I’d a big mortgage having converted a bungalow but, with three kids at the time, I had to sell it otherwise the bank would take it off me.
I was weighing up management at the time but football had gone to pot in this country and was effectively part-time around 2009/2010.
Already burned by the financial mess at Shels and Drogheda, we were heading for years of austerity and I wouldn’t have survived in football.
I’m all or nothing, full steam ahead. I wouldn’t have got anything back from the game because there’s no living in it.
So I assessed the market to see what was taking off and retrained as a software engineer.
After selling up, we rented for 10 years and it was hard going, supporting a family of four kids on €27,000-a-year in my first job in my new career.
I couldn’t afford to drive so I cycled a 40km round-trip to work every day, living in Hollystown and then Finglas.
At that stage of my life, my only focus was on reinventing myself for the sake of my family with the ultimate goal of buying another house.
I don’t mind admitting there were days and weeks when I genuinely struggled to put food on the table, scraping by from one paycheck to the next.
This isn’t a sob story. You only have to open the curtains to realise how hard up people really are after this pandemic.
But I say it because I’m immensely proud of what I did to build another career from scratch and provide stability for my family.
‘Rules of Survival’, the sixth song on my album as it happens.
Sometimes people have a perception that footballers in Ireland are living in their mansions, quaffing champagne and counting wads of cash.
But it’s not like that.
Even in media work, none of the ex-footballers here are Roy Keane, Jamie Carragher or Gary Neville getting millions for pre-scripted, bullsh*t carpool karaoke-type shows.
It’s daft stuff, but good luck to them. Football was a walk in the park compared to the real world.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice life playing ball and you’re spoiled. Everything’s done for you and you’re paid okay.
But it doesn’t last forever and it’s a serious wake-up call when it’s all over.
As appealing as management was, I knew it’d be a mistake and moving out of football was the right thing for me.
Away from Drogheda United, Tim Clancy works nights in another job to support his family. I’ve enormous respect for that.
Missed opportunity
What a shame that Shamrock Rovers’ Champions League clash wasn’t on TV.
Streaming league matches is one thing but these big European games are what showcase the league.
And Tuesday’s game with Slovan Bratislava was an absolute belter and deserved a wider audience.
Hats off to Rovers. They knew they didn’t perform in Slovakia but there were mitigating factors like the heat.
They responded in Tallaght and will rue the fact they couldn’t see it out. It’s just frustrating that the wider public didn’t get to see their heroics.
Let’s toast these Italian stallions
IT was Bastille Day on Wednesday and there I was cycling down to get the baguette in my beret.
But I stopped short of buying a bottle of French red. I love my wine, as you know, but you can’t beat a Valpolicella Ripasso.
Why? Because it’s Italian and Italians have balls as they proved on Sunday night.
Not like the French, who bottled it.
Italians have style, panache, great wine and a hell of a football team. What a country!
With all that passion, they’re just a better looking version of us really.
Lew signing is real coup
Alfie Lewis signing a permanent deal with St Pat’s could be the best bit of business this summer.
It’s rare enough that loan signings from the UK make a significant impression but Saints have nailed it.
Lewis - who has just left West Ham - is a midfield dynamo and Liverpool’s Vitslav Jaros is a revelation in goal.
That they both want to stay for the rest of the season is a sign that St Pat’s are going places.
It's a club with a strong European pedigree, but they're not in Europe this season so they could feel sorry for themselves.
But they can’t afford to sulk. Stephen O’Donnell has them in a three-way tie at the top of the league.
But this is the most important part of the season for them and the next three or four weeks are huge.
They have to stay focused and motivated to be in the mix by late September, by which stage they would be serious contenders.
Let’s see what they’re made of.
We Av perfect stage so use it
Last night’s European game at Aviva Stadium shouldn’t be a one off.
NFL teams play regular-season games at London’s Wembley Stadium and I see no reason why a handful of league games couldn’t be played at the Aviva every year.
On the pitch, the product is there. It’s just the rundown grounds and TV camera angles showing us as much that let us down.
We need to convince people that there’s a great league on our doorstep and the Aviva is sitting there doing nothing for 80% of the year.
So give the League of Ireland the venue it deserves - and not just on FAI Cup final day.
