‘It’s not a hunger you don’t see much of in modern-day football. You don’t see much of it in modern-day life’
“ERIN says he sleeps with the boot,” says Shauna, doubling over in laughter as discussion turns to that goal in Cardiff.
On the chart of proud family days, October 9 is pushing for top spot. After every game, McClean FaceTimes his mother and this call was special. He was driving back to Birmingham with Erin holding the phone and a full car singing along to his ballads. Shauna and her gang were in the local waving back, screaming and cheering.
When that crisp right-footed strike found the bottom corner, O’Doherty jumped out of his sitting room chair, felt his knee lock and ended up sprawled out on the ground. While he was laid out, he tapped out a text to the cause of his predicament. The amused McClean replied the following morning to ask if he was OK.
The 28-year-old’s growth to a position of authority in this World Cup campaign has enlivened Creggan; Denmark has been on the lips for weeks. On the day after the Wales win, Waxsy met a man who delivered a succinct match report. A Derry goalscorer, a Derry man of the match (Duffy) and a Derry manager.
McClean will thrive on the play-off responsibility. Much as he would like to be playing more at West Brom, his family and friends all stress he has reached a level of contentment in his life that had eluded him in his early days overseas when homesickness brought him back at every possible opportunity.
The turning point, according to Rory Kelly, was really knuckling down when he found himself in a poor Wigan side plummeting to relegation from the Championship.
As a father, he needed to refocus and his performances earned him a move back to the top table. “James has really grown up in the last few years,” says Rory, who now works for the London office of McClean’s representatives Platinum One. “And that’s because he’s a daddy. It’s an exciting time for them; his eldest is starting school in September. They’ve found a base there.”
“What James has now is the whole package, everything he’s wanted,” says Waxsy. “He’s got his family, a seriously successful career. The wains (kids) dream about it; he made the dream come true.”
England will never be home, though, and there is no doubt that James, Erin, Allie, James Jnr and Willow Iv y will relocate to Derry eventually; there will be more outings at the Brandywell and more time with his friends. Eugene is a father now too, juggling that with a demanding job in a residential care home for young people, and the WhatsApp chats seldom veer into football business.
Their catch-ups revolve around their new pressures, or nostalgic chats about the way things used to be. “Sometimes I forget that he even plays for Ireland,” he says.
Behind it all, it’s the same James, much as he can afford the nice clothes and cars that were out of reach when he was a lowly-paid Derry player who would spend any of his disposable income on designer gear. If they are his treats, the addiction to punishing training has not left him.
Eugene went to visit after a game with Liverpool last season and discovered that the method of unwinding was disappearing out back for a boxing session on his punchbag. “That’s typical James, he just sticks at it,” Eugene laughs. “We try and keep him grounded, we give him a hard time. But I did text him after Wales and said I was proud of him and all of that. He wrote back and told me ,‘You’ve gone soft’.”
But Derry people know McClean has a soft side too. The visits back may have reduced in quantity because of family commitments, but his footprint is still visible. O’Donnell gets emotional when talking about his former student’s charitable gestures.
They go beyond his welldocumented support for the families of his old friends and team-mates, the much-missed Ryan McBride and Mark Farren. Strangers benefit from his generosity; the tales are well known in Derry. “We hear of tragedies,” says O’Donnell. “And I’ve heard so many times on the grapevine that James has sorted that out, he’s paid for a funeral or tried to help somebody that’s in conflict.
“John Hume taught me. And when I was in the Holy Child, he would come to the school and sign books and chat to people. James is like that when he’s home, he gives up his time. You’re looking at me saying, ‘He’s putting James on the same level as John Hume’. John did a different thing for people but James is doing a lot for young people in this area. If everybody showed the same respect for life and for communities, the world would be a better place.”
And that is the context in which O’Doherty frames the success story. “We would use James as a role model,” he says. “But take football out of it. We’re not telling kids they’re going to be Premier League footballers.
“What we say is that he’s achieved what he’s achieved with sheer hard work. It’s not just a hunger you don’t see much of in modern-day football. You don’t see much of it in modern-day life.”
He’s not infallible. With his newfound wealth, McClean mistakenly presumed that his folks might fancy a change of scenery and splashed out on a lavish house ‘out in the back roads’. They lasted a couple of weeks in the countryside mansion and returned to their terraced house. His mother hated being away.
“I reared them all here, the six kids, and I just wanted to come back,” Shauna says, “No, no, no.. this is where we all grew up. This is home.”
This is Creggan. This is James McClean.