Lessons to be learned as students juggle with the demands of game
IF YOU wanted a snapshot of the realities of life in the League of Ireland for those still finding their feet in the world, an exchange on social media involving two of its breakthrough talents this season laid bare the juggling act involved.
As well as the demands of forging a successful football career here with the aim of moving across the water, plenty are also ensuring the educational foundations are in place to pursue one outside of the game should they fail to fulfil their dreams on the pitch.
As many older pros here will tell them, it doesn’t get much easier once college is replaced by a job, a mortgage and family. But for now, those wet behind the ears have their struggles.
Darragh Markey and Fuad Sule (below) are just two of close to 90 League of Ireland players enrolled at college or university. The pair were teammates with St Patrick’s Athletic’s Under 19s from 2014, winning the National League the following year, but the latter has since made the breakthrough into senior football with cross-city rivals Bohemians under the guidance of manager Keith Long and assistant Trevor Croly.
Last Friday, the diminutive, hardworking midfielder played a key role in the Gypsies’ 2-1 win away to Bray Wanderers while Markey, an extremely talented playmaker who — to steal Brian Kerr’s description of David Silva — is so small ‘you might find him in the bottom of a lucky bag,’ looked impressive yet again in Pat’s 1-1 draw at home to Sligo Rovers.
Both now 20, neither were afforded the chance to get their heads down for a good night’s sleep before returning to training the following morning to take part in a recovery session. So much for much-needed R&R, a staple part of any elite athlete’s life.
They had exams to sit at Maynooth University and were cramming late into the night before spending Saturday afternoon hoping some of it would somehow spill onto the page. More Red Bull and page cuts than warm downs and yoga mats.
They’re by no means the only ones undergoing such stresses at this time of year — the FAI confirmed before the start of this season that there were 86 players in the Premier and First Division registered for Third Level action. Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and Cork City have as close to fulltime set-ups as you can get but all three of those clubs also have first-team players in college. Jamie McGrath joined the champions from St Pat’s but is continuing at Maynooth despite starting a scholarship programme while at Richmond Park (like Sule did).
Rovers centre back Danny Devine, 23, is a third-year business student at IT Tallaght having returned home from Aston Villa while Cork’s John Kavanagh is enrolled at University College Cork.
Summer now gives these students a break from college life, but there will be no lads’ holiday to Ibiza to celebrate their freedom. The demands of the League of Ireland — where every one of the six sides in the bottom half of the Premier Division are in a relegation battle — are unrelenting.
If the college kids are lucky, maybe they’ll manage a trip to Mosney during the mid-season break next month. But it will probably be for a training camp.