‘OZ OPENED MY EYES’
McEneff opens up on tough spell in Perth
AS a local playing for Derry City, Aaron McEneff was aware of the history of the dog track that framed the Brandywell pitch.
But when the classy midfielder signed for Perth Glory in the summer of 2022, he never expected canine interference while training with the A-League club.
Nor did he anticipate the club’s use of public parks to help the players work up a sweat.
‘We trained in a public park, and there’d be people with their dogs walking,’ recalled McEneff.
‘I did it in Derry a few times but even when it was public, you wouldn’t get many days where a dog might run through your drill.
‘No disrespect but it’s not all the big stadiums and stuff. There’s only a few teams in the league with their own training ground.’
At least Shamrock Rovers, where McEneff has been welcomed back to the fold, have their own training facilities at Kingswood, off the Naas Road.
McEneff, 28, is the latest Rover to return after exploring something different, as Graham Burke, Jack Byrne and Trevor Clarke have done before him.
In his case, he was away for three years but coming back feels like home.
‘It’s the same staff, a lot of the lads are from when I left. From the first day it felt the same really, easy enough to settle in and get in the swing of things,’ he said yesterday.
McEneff was a keystone at the start of Stephen Bradley’s Rovers rebuild, helping spur the team to FAI Cup success in 2019 and the first of four SSE Airtricity League titles in 2020.
In February 2021, he signed for Hearts and was a regular on the run-in as the Jambos won promotion to the Scottish Premiership. After figuring less often the following season, he took the road less travelled, and headed for Perth Glory, where former Republic of Ireland striker Andy Keogh is a club legend.
‘The opportunity to go out there, to play week in, week out and have a good lifestyle for my family, play in the sun, it was pretty attractive for us, and what we chose to do, I wouldn’t regret the decision to go there,’ he said. Football-wise, it wasn’t all sunshine and light after he joined Perth Glory. ‘You see the infrastructure, the 60,000 seater stadiums but we trained in a public park, and there’d be people with their dogs walking.
‘I saw the stadium before I went over but I didn’t see the pitch where we trained,’ he continued.
‘We had a decent HQ with a gym and physio room, canteen, changing room, that was all quality but then we had to jump in a car and drive around to the pitch and train.
‘It sort of opened my eyes a little bit because I didn’t expect it.’
As for the standard, McEneff accepted not everyone gets blown away by the A-League, but there are reasons why.
‘There’s a lot of travel, the temperatures are warm and teams that are playing away, there’s a time difference as well so you don’t get a true reflection watching on TV.
‘I’ve had times where I spoke to my father after a game and he said it looks really slow but we’ve had a five and a half hour flight the day before, dealing with a three-hour time difference and then it’s probably 35 degrees as well.
‘I found that difficult to adjust to, especially for the away games.’
‘Also, you play in a 60,000 seater stadium but you might get 5,000 fans and there’s no atmosphere. For me you’d rather play in a smaller stadium with the fans on top of you. That football feeling gets lost a little bit.’
And then, Perth Glory hit the financial buffers last summer, which led to the Australian Professional League appointed as receivers to find a buyer.
‘In the dressing room, we were fully aware of the situation and it wasn’t easy as a group to take your mind away from what was going on.
‘There were attempts of reassurances and stuff but it never really changed.
‘For myself, my wife and kid, after moving out that side of the world, it was tough at times to deal with it.’
The club is currently owner-less and Rovers negotiated a loan deal with the APL direct to secure McEneff, initially on loan, before the move becomes permanent at the end of 2024.
It’s a lot colder and wetter back in Ireland but McEneff has the inner warmth of being wanted again and will get the chance to play, which wasn’t the case at Glory.
‘I got told maybe a month ago that I wasn’t going to play. If I was going to be back playing week in, week out, maybe it would have changed and I would have started enjoying it but I needed a change again.’
It’s come about and McEneff has once again found that football feeling he felt he’d lost Down Under.
“We had to train at a public park” “It was hard to adjust for away games”