NI FOOTBALLERS’ WIVES... HOW WE MIX FAMILY LIFE WITH THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Football is a game of two halves, so how do the other halves of those involved with some of the Irish League’s premiership teams cope with the demands of the game on family life? Lee Henry finds out from three women whose men are getting geared up for the

Football has always been a part of our relationship. When we first met, when I was at university 13 years ago, Barry was involved in football then. Over the years it’s become more prevalent in our lives because Barry has gone from managing youth football to managing at Irish League premiership level, so the responsibility of that becomes more important. I’ve always been supportive of him and his career. I’m a big believer in him.

Managing a team is 24/7. People might assume that’s 6.30pm to 9.30pm on a Tuesday and a Thursday and 3pm to 5pm on a Saturday, but it’s almost seven days a week in our house. If Barry isn’t at training, he’s taking phone calls, planning sessions, thinking about upcoming games. It’s constant, in that sense.

Over the Christmas period is the toughest time. There are so many games at that stage in the season. There’s Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and then our girl’s birthday is January 2, so it’s a busy time for us. Barry is there Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but during that period he’s away most of the rest of the time. But it’s an important time for him. Once the kids are looked after, the games are the most important thing.

Barry is so good at what he does. He’s so passionate about managing football teams. Barry is a qualified architect and I worked as a transport manager until I had the children, and then I took a step back from my own career and now I work for Barry’s architecture business, Gray Design Ltd.

The kids took the forefront for me at that stage.

Barry owns First Steps nursery in Warrenpoint as well. Architecture is Barry’s main profession but when you think about everything that he has going, it does sound crazy. If you sat and thought about it, the logistics of everything we have going, you would wonder how we fit it all into our week, but we do manage, somehow, mainly because we’re each other’s biggest supporters. That’s the secret to how we get it all done.

Barry is quite young to be manager of a premier-level football teams, by all accounts. He’s probably one of the youngest managers to come through the ranks.

He’s done it all quite quickly, but I think that’s testament to his own capabilities and his drive. He is a very driven person.

He played youth football — he was more of a Gaelic player in his day, rather than a football player — but he’s taken to management unbelievably well.

When we met he was working in youth football, so he’s come such a long way since then.

Personally, I’m a basketcase during the season. I watched a lot of the games before the kids came along, but these days it’s obviously not suited to them. A football game is too long for them to sit through at the minute, but they’ll come into it in time.

But I get awful nervous when I am watching games. I will go to the stadium for the first game of the season, and we’ll see how it pans out after that. I’ll keep a close watch on the league table.

When the season ends, we try to get away.

I’m not sure if you could call it relaxing, though. This year, when it came to booking a holiday, we were in a unique position because Barry wasn’t managing a team.

He had just left Warrenpoint and hadn’t signed with Cliftonville yet. But we always try to get away May and June time. Next year, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll see how the season goes.

I grew up in a house full of boys, so football has always been there in the background.

I’m from Silverbridge originally, so our house was a big GAA house, but football was always there too.

I wouldn’t proclaim to be the world’s biggest fan of football. I don’t profess to know everything about the game.

Barry is a Liverpool fan, and my brothers support Liverpool too, so I would sit and watch a big game if it was on the TV.

I’d float in and out of it, I wouldn’t be glued to the TV, but I try to take an interest.

Because it influences probably 90% of the conversational starting points in our house, you pick up a bit, inevitably.

I probably know a bit more than I would like to admit, if I’m honest, but I’m not sure I would want to sit down with the big boys and talk about football.

I’d probably be out of my depth.”