ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: ANDY HUNTERfinds out how Gaelic football inspired Séamus Coleman's Premier League ambitions
THERE IS an honesty to Séamus Coleman that reflects a background in his favoured sport. It is not football, or at least not the code in which he is making his name with Everton. For the first 17 years of his life, Gaelic football was the overriding passion for the midfielder from Killybegs in Donegal. Then came a chance encounter with Sligo Rovers, their offer of a €150-a-week contract, a €68,000 transfer to Everton, a career almost ruined by the (narrowly-avoided) amputation of a toe, a debut in Lisbon’s Stadium of Light and a nomination for the 2010-11 Professional Footballers’ Association young player of the year award. He is, unsurprisingly, still coming to terms with the unplanned journey.
Had fate decreed otherwise, Coleman might well have played before the 81,436 supporters who descended on Croke Park in August for Donegal’s All-Ireland semi-final against the eventual champions, Dublin. He was a recognisable face in the crowd instead, able to attend as he recovered from an ankle ligament injury. The career change was a late and close call, the result of a pre-season friendly that Sligo Rovers had arranged against Coleman’s Sunday league team.
“Gaelic was always my number one,” he admits. “I played bits and pieces of soccer but I didn’t have a serious commitment to it. Gaelic was my chosen sport but when I was 18 I was offered a chance with a Premier Division team in Ireland and €150 a week. I thought I should at least give it a go because I could always go back to Gaelic if it didn’t work out. That was the plan anyway, but I haven’t looked back since, to be honest. It’s been unbelievable.”
Not that Coleman found it easy to make the break. He adds: “I’d played Gaelic all my life and I loved it. I was on the county teams and we’d been quite successful. It was a tough decision to leave it behind. I didn’t want to leave a team that had all my mates in it. I still follow Donegal and Killybegs and keep in touch with the lads there. I’ll go whenever I can.
“I was playing Gaelic every week for my home town and we were winning, so it was difficult to move away from all that but, at the same time, I’d wanted to play in the Premier League in England since I was a boy.”
Coleman admits to playing “catch-up”, having missed the academy education available to his peers. But therein lies part of his popularity and success at Everton. His debut for the club was one to savour and one to forget. The raw right-back, as he was in October 2009, was thrown into a makeshift defence at left-back against a Benfica team boasting the striking talents of Pablo Aimar, Javier Saviola, Oscar Cardozo and, particularly that night in Lisbon, Angel di María. The result was Everton’s heaviest European defeat, 5-0, and a bout of introspection for the debutant.
His first appearance at Goodison Park came six weeks later, when he was instrumental in David Moyes’s team recovering from a two-goal deficit against Spurs to draw. The strength, energy and honesty he brought to Everton’s right wing that night, which secured a regular first-team role the following season, was born of his own education.
“I think some of my Gaelic experience has been useful here,” he says. “It’s a harder game for a start. If you get pushed you get straight back up. You don’t roll around looking at the referee for a free-kick and you wouldn’t get one if you did in Gaelic. It’s a fight – nothing too serious, but it is pure determination and I think I brought that with me here. I just had to play soccer the way I played Gaelic and thankfully it has worked out.”
Coleman is 23 but his career in England amounts to just 39 league starts for Everton and Blackpool, where he played on loan when Ian Holloway’s team won promotion to the Premier League. The total is not explained entirely by his relatively late start. An infection put him out for several months shortly after his arrival on Merseyside. It could have been far worse.
“We went on a pre-season tour to America and I had a blister on my foot. By the time we arrived in America it was really sore and infected. The medical staff tried to settle it down for a couple of days but that didn’t work so I had to go to hospital where they cut a hole in it and tried to clear it out. I then had to have an operation back in Liverpool and it was only afterwards they told me how serious it was. They didn’t tell me at the time because they didn’t want me to worry but I was told I could have lost my toe. It was crazy. It was just a blister on the top of my toe.”
Coleman excelled when he was moved into right midfield by Moyes last season, and four appearances for the Republic of Ireland followed. His second full season as a Premier League player has not began so well, however – a dreadful challenge in a pre-season friendly against Villarreal ruled him out for the first month and his form is yet to recover fully, although there were clear signs of improvement when he came on as a substitute in the League Cup loss to Chelsea on Wednesday.
“I got injured at the wrong time and came back quicker than I was expecting. I played a few games and I think I could have done better in them but it’s a long season,” he says. “This season has been harder. Teams know more about you in your second season and you have to adapt. The manager has spoken to me a few times about what I need to do and what I can add to my game. Last season was fantastic for me and I need to build on that now.”
Coleman is not the only one hoping for recovery at Goodison today, when Manchester United return to Premier League duty for the first time since their humiliation by Manchester City. Coleman says: “We know they will be looking for a response but they will not fancy coming to Goodison either. They have bounced back plenty of times before and they’ve got the best manager in the world so I’m sure they will recover, just hopefully not against us.”
Coleman is still adjusting to a profile that a career in Gaelic football could not have given him. “I do find it hard to believe where I am. I’d never say no to a photo or an autograph because a couple of years ago I was the one asking,” he says.
The games for Killybegs, for Sligo Rovers have shaped Coleman’s view of the financial constraints that have made an impact on Moyes’s ambitions for Everton. “You will never hear anyone in the changing room complaining about the club’s finances. We are at Everton to do a job. We’ve got great supporters and, let’s be honest, we are spoilt rotten. The facilities are fantastic, the kitchen staff, everyone, is so friendly and I just love the place. I will never take it for granted.”
Guardian Service
