‘This doesn’t seem to faze him at all. A 34-year-old man with a 17-year-old son. Then it’s soccer, I suppose. He must see a lot’

I’ve missed my son since he went to Manchester. The smell of rolled tobacco. The way his eyes light up every time a cash-in-transit van drives by. Even the way he calls 7-Up and Coke “minner doddles”.

The security dude takes one look at my passport, then goes, "Ooo are you?" the same way they talk in Coronation Street.

I'm like, "Yeah, no, I'm Ross O'Carroll-Kelly?" and I have a little smile to myself. I always presume people know who I am. But then I suppose the Leinster Schools Senior Cup wouldn't get much coverage on this side of the water.

The dude goes, “I’m not daft – I can seet name ont passport. I’m askin what relation you are tut Ronan.”

“Oh,” I go. “Yeah, I’m his old man. Slash father?”

This doesn’t seem to faze him at all. A 34-year-old man with a 17-year-old son. Then it’s soccer, I suppose. He must see a lot.

“Drive throot barrier,” he goes, “and paahk int caah paahk ont left – it’s bout undrit yaahds up road. Blue portacabin at tother side is where apprentices have thus lunches.”

I take my passport back, then follow his instructions.

Ronan is already there when I arrive, sitting on a hord plastic chair at a Formica-topped table. It feels like I’m visiting him in prison.

He just nods at me. He doesn’t shout, ‘Rosser, you bender!’ across the room, like he does at home. He’s playing it uber cool.

I’m like, “Hey, Ro.”

He goes, “Alreet, Rosser? Sit dowin,” which is what I end up doing.

I'm there, "The security's a bit tight, isn't it? I just presumed, because it's soccer, that most of the criminal types would be on this side of the fence."

He laughs at that, in fairness to him. I’m good value.

He’s like, “How’s Sudeka?”

I’m there, “Sorcha’s good. She thinks Honor might have a thing called Oppositional Defiant Disorder. That’s why she’s such a wagon. So tell me, what have you learned? Have you anything to show me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Er, you’re an apprentice soccer player, aren’t you? What tricks have you learned? What’s your keepy-uppy record now? Must be something ridiculous.”

“We’re not doing keepy-uppies, Rosser.”

“No? Well, what the fock are you doing all day?”

“We’re learning all about systems and tactics.”

I just nod. I’ve watched soccer before and I’ve never seen any evidence of either. I don’t mention that, though. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.

He gets me a cheese sandwich, which ends up being surprisingly edible, and a cup of really bad coffee, while I bring up to speed on what's been happening at home and in Love/Hate.

"Nidge's mistake," he goes, "was that he picked bad genoddles. Compare Tommy, Aidan and Fran to Paulie, Silvio and Christopher Moltisanti. The fooken ha'penny place, Rosser."

It’s while I’m weighing up this observation that some dude – I’m guessing he’s in, like, his 20s and a foreigner, even though I should technically say non-national – walks over to our table and goes, “Asshole! Deed you clean my boots?”

At first, roysh, I think it must be just banter between them? I think, yeah, no, Ronan will come back now and hit him with one of his funny putdowns. Except he doesn't? He goes, "I cleant them, yeah. I left them in yisser locker."

Then the dude – I swear to God – just rolls his eyes, goes, “Stoopeed eediot,” and walks off.

I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa – what was that?”

He goes, “Ah, it’s one of me duties, Rosser.”

“What, cleaning boots?”

“Cleaning boots, sweeping the thressing-room flo-er…”

This wave of terrible sadness suddenly comes over me. I'm trying to think of that expression that Peig Sayers used to use. In aimsir. My son is in aimsir.

I’m there, “So you’re sweeping up and taking ess, haich, one, tee from tossers like him.”

Ronan sort of, like, laughs. “Do you know what that is, Rosser?”

I neither know nor care. He mentions a name – again, it sounds a bit non-nationally – and he seems to be implying that the dude is somehow famous.

When I hear the name, I just shrug.

“He’d be on about hondord and toorty grand a week,” Ro goes. “That’s steerlen, Rosser.”

Again, I shrug. I always presume that soccer players are paid big money to compensate them for the disappointment that they’re not playing rugby.

I’m there, “When I hear someone talk to my son like that, my immediate instinct is to deck them.”

“Rosser,” he goes, “don’t deck him.”

"I'm probably not going to deck him – I'm saying it's my immediate instinct. Anyway, how's Shadden?"

“She’s moostard, Rosser… I think.”

“You think? I thought her and Rihanna-Brogan were moving over?”

“She’s over and back – you know yourself. She’s finding it veddy heerd to settle. She misses Finglas teddibly.”

I don’t comment on that. You can imagine how much restraint that takes.

I’m like, “That’s got to be tough on you.”

He’s there, “You know yisser self,” putting a brave face on it. And suddenly I’m the protective father, thinking, the poor kid, over here in a strange city, playing an even stranger sport, away from his girlfriend and daughter. And the so-called pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is a life as a soccer player. My heart literally breaks for him.

It’s at that exact moment that my coffee suddenly explodes and I realize that someone has thrown a football boot at our table. I turn around and it’s this dude from earlier – his name is Something Something-Something. “You call theez clean?” he goes. I’m trying to capture the accent here. “Eez not clean. Fuckeen do again.”

Then off he goes, slamming the door behind him.

Ro must recognise the sudden rage that comes over me, because he storts going, “Leave it, Rosser. Ine seerdious – leave irrout.”

But I’m suddenly on my feet, going, “I don’t care who he is. He’s about to be the subject of a decking.”

I go after the dude – think of Liam Neeson in Taken – but I manage to get no more than five steps across the floor of the portacabin when I'm suddenly hit hord from behind, around the waist area, and I'm knocked to the floor. Ronan has rugby-tackled me. Not only that, it's one of the greatest rugby tackles I've ever been on the end of – and I'm saying that as someone who's been tackled by the best.

And all I can do, as I try to get my breath back, is look at him and think, “Do you know something? There might be hope for you yet.”