Irish manager in waiting ‘couldn’t turn job down’
Mccarthy’s happy to reflect on folly of jumping to conclusions
STEPHEN Kenny revealed his surprise and joy after landing the managerial post of Ireland’s U21s soccer squad.
He spoke of the privilige that comes with the role in his first interview since being appointed.
He also called the senior squad job, “The most ruthless of professions” after being asked about being next in line to manage the team in two years.
He said: “No one could have envisaged Martin [O’neill] losing his job last week, that was a surprise to me. It moved so quickly.”
On the initial hesitation he faced leaving Dundalk, he added: “We had a situation where we had a great chance of being in the group stages again of European competition so it wasn’t something I was going to leave lightly.
“But to manage Ireland is just the pinnacle of your career and it’s just such a huge honour so it’s not something I could even think twice about to be fair.”
Speaking on the Marian Finucane Show on RTE Radio One, he described his stints managing several clubs across Ireland and abroad for more than 10 years, which forced him and his family to relocate regularly.
He said: “We’ve gone from Dublin to Derry, we’ve gone to Fife in Scotland and back to Derry – where we lived in Inishowen for a long period – which was a great, terriffic place to live and bring up your family. And then we moved to Blackrock, Co Louth, in the last year.”
He also revealed his struggle of being an adopted child, saying he had looked for many years for information on his real birth mother.
Kenny explained: “I wasn’t one of those angry adopted kids that felt abandoned.
“What I found out wasn’t what I expected, my mother had given me up in her 30s. That was a real shock.”
He added he has a lot of work facing him in the coming months and he will do his best in the two years before progressing to the senior team.
No one could have envisaged Martin losing job, it was a shock
STEPHEN KENNY RTE RADIO ONE YESTERDAY
MICK MCCARTHY makes no secret of the fact he wanted a return to the Ireland hot-seat.
But since quitting Ipswich in April, he found it impossible to stop speculation about him taking another club job.
It’s believed he turned down at least two Championship roles in that time – and was linked with more.
Indeed, Mccarthy has revealed how a train journey to Sunderland – to buy a car for his daughter – fuelled rumours he would succeed Chris Coleman at the Black Cats. “That was brilliant,” he laughed. “Dave Bowman was my chief scout – he works at Ipswich and worked with Ireland as well. He had a car for two years, leased it. He looks after it so I said, ‘I’ll buy that, it looks good,’ He said, ‘Okay the garage is up in Sunderland.
“So I jump on the train on the Monday morning (in late April) and they’ve sacked Chris Coleman the night before.
“So I’m sat in this carriage, there is nobody else in it and the cleaner comes in. He’s walking towards me and he sees me.
“He walks past and goes to the next carriage. Then he comes back and has another look and goes, ‘You’re Mick Mccarthy aren’t you?’
“I said, ‘I am yes.’ He goes, ‘You’re going to get the Sunderland job aren’t you?’ I said, ‘I’m not’. He said, ‘I don’t believe you.’
“I said, ‘I’m going to buy a car, I’ve got to get the train up.’ He said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ I was, ‘Okay, then don’t believe me.’
“So he goes back out and then comes back in, and it’s ‘Anyway, I’ve had 100 quid on you at 11-1’.”
The tale is a classic example of the folly of jumping to conclusions and the new Ireland boss is applying the same principles to the doom and gloom surrounding the Irish squad he has just inherited. The players need a new voice after a disappointing end to the five-year Martin O’neill and Roy Keane (inset) era.
But Mccarthy would like a little bit of positivity, with Ireland set to learn their fate for the coming year at today’s Euro 2020 draw.
“Anything I say could be borderline criticism of Martin and Roy and I don’t want to do that.
“They qualified for the Euros and it was all sweetness and light.
“But it’s interesting – when I went into Ipswich all I got was negativity. It was unbelievable. Paul Jewell was a great fella.
“How it got to that with Paul I’ll never know because all of Paul’s team were always right at it, really vibrant and having a go. He had really good teams.
“I sat down doing the analysis, watching the last two games against Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County. I’m looking at this saying ‘what the hell have I done’.
“But our goalkeeping coach Malcolm Webster, to his eternal credit, said ‘gaffer, we’re not that bad, we’ve got some decent players’.
“He said ‘It’s all been negative but there’s some good lads and good players in this squad’. And I said ‘well, thank f*** somebody has told me that’.
“I was borderline thinking that I’m out of here. I couldn’t believe the negativity. And he was dead right. It wasn’t all bad.
“So I don’t think it can be all bad here with Ireland, that wouldn’t be the case.”
Mccarthy added: “When you walk into a football club when it’s going badly, everybody in that club wants you to do well.
“You make sure to grab that and harness it.”