Evergreen Wes Hoolahan playing central part in Cambridge adventure

‘There’s a familiar feel in the midfield as well,” said the geezer with the sharp southern English accent, “with The Magician – Wes Hoolahan – The Digger, The Boat and the ever-reliable Liam O’Neill”.

The geezer sounded well pleased. It was last Saturday afternoon and the showman was running through the Cambridge United line-up about to face Carlisle at Brunton Park 260 miles north-west of home. For purposes of clarity, The Digger is Paul Digby and The Boat is Hiram Boateng. The Magician, we know.

The deft magic in Wes Hoolahan’s feet has been making us smile since he appeared on League of Ireland teamsheets for Shelbourne 20 years ago. Now he’s there at Cambridge at the age of 38, still scampering around, still knitting things together with soft touches and little nudges, still bending in left-footed crosses you can see Robbie Brady’s head rising to meet. Hoolahan has taken to Cambridge and The U’s have taken to him. Last Saturday, the combination took them top of League Two.

This is a big deal for Cambridge United, a club which only joined the Football League in 1970 in place of Bradford Park Avenue. They have had good times under Ron Atkinson in the 1970s and John Beck in the early 90s, but more recently, from 2005-14, Cambridge spent nine season in the Conference, non-league. They got back up via a Wembley playoff but two seasons ago finished 21st. Last season they were 16th when the campaign was curtailed.

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Cambridge United were not exactly a rising power, so the idea of being top of the division, with a striker in Paul Mullin who on Saturday scored his 25th of the season, is sending pleasant tremors through the Fens.

And then there is Wes. Cambridge were drawing 1-1 at Carlisle as the game entered added time. The hosts had the better second half and a point would have been greeted with a mixture of relief and regret by the visitors, who had been markedly superior in the first half.

Bumpy pitch

That was when Hoolahan was most prominent. On a windy day on a bumpy pitch, it had taken five minutes for him even to get a touch and seven more to get his second. But the latter was typically clever and Wes was now in the game. Two minutes later The Magician and The Boat swapped passes and zipped forward to create the first big chance.

Cambridge were on top and Wes was strolling – the Carlisle commentator said of the home defence: “They’re too scared of Hoolahan to tackle him!”

This was shortly before half-time as Cambridge pushed again and, not long after, Mullin drilled in a shot that broke a club record for one season – and there are eight games left. Back at the Abbey Stadium, they renamed a stand in his honour. Until the end of the season.

The contest looked all over. But Carlisle rallied in the second half to equalise, Hoolahan’s influence declined and the draw was looming until, in the 90th minute, Shilow Tracey (on loan at Cambridge from Tottenham) nipped in to win a challenge in the home half.

Tracey was 30 yards out and saw a wee lad surging ahead of him into the penalty-area. He’s called Wes Hoolahan. Tracey found him and from the byline Hoolahan pulled the ball back across goal. Substitute Adam May was rushing there to make it 2-1. There was, understandably, a pile-on celebration. We like to say this is the sort of battling victory that earns promotions and we say it because it fastens belief.

Wobbles in spring can lead to falls – and Cambridge knew that four of their next opponents were in the division’s top eight. They began that run on Friday with a 2-1 home win against Morecambe, with Mullin scoring both.

After the pile-on at Carlisle, Hoolahan made way. He had played 91 minutes, so it was hardly wrapping him in cotton wool. That, though, is what Cambridge have been trying to do. Over the past five-six weeks for example, when their match schedule has been Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday, Hoolahan has not played in midweek. He has started the six on a Saturday and all were won. The three on Tuesday? All were lost. He was subsituted in the 95th minute on Friday.

As Mullin’s 27 goals prove, this is no one-man team; but Hoolahan has made a difference. “We’re a different team without him, obviously,” Cambridge coach Mark Bonner said last week. At 35, Bonner is three years younger than the man he is managing.

The club had thought they had missed out on their elegant Irishman. After his decade 60 miles away in Norwich, Hoolahan had gone to West Brom for a season in September 2018, then took a plane to Australia a year later. An ankle injury, then Covid, meant Hoolahan’s appearances with the Newcastle Jets were limited. He returned to the east of England.

He had trained with Cambridge pre-Australia and The U’s thought he would sign. He finally did last July and once he got into his stride, fans began to see the player we all know. Now they have him mocked up as Ian Brown from the Stone Roses and call him the ‘Wesurrection’.

Hoolahan’s form is such he was named the division’s player of the month in January and when collecting that award, he said: “I still love playing, I’ve still got the hunger. The feeling I had when I first kicked a ball professionally with Shelbourne at 18 is still in me playing for Cambridge now.”

Promotion

He is undecided but he may play on next season. If Cambridge go up, Hoolahan will have chalked up a fifth promotion in England to add to his three League of Ireland titles with Shelbourne and his 43 caps.

The focus on his age is natural; once it was about his physique. But Hoolahan defied the latter and is doing so with the former. As he always has, he perseveres. It is one of the lessons of Wes Hoolahan – there’s more to him than natural ability – and how great it would be to see him playing at the end of next season. He will be 40 in May 2022.

It would be an example to Irish teenagers who have experienced disappointment. Hoolahan had trials at Millwall, Sunderland and Ipswich and came home. He could have sulked, instead he found his feet at Shelbourne, went again and didn’t stop. Hence he’s on a Brunton Park byline in the 90th minute two months short of turning 39.

Bonner, the coach, said after Carlisle: “We’re looking like a team that’s having a bit of an adventure and loving it.” They do, personified by Wes Hoolahan.