Pain fuels a young man's fire

A month after he gave a hint to journalists in the build-up to the Yugoslavia game of the pain he had been through over the past year or so, the old swagger is back as Gary Kelly settles back into his role as Republic of Ireland regular.

His face was missed during the worst 12 months of his professional career, but not nearly as much as his presence on the right side of the pitch. Such had been the strength of his performances at full back or, more usually, wide right in midfield, for Mick McCarthy prior to his absence that he had captained his country for the first time on his last appearance before disappearing into footballing limbo.

Great times. Distant memories. But a taste of the good life that the 25-year-old from Drogheda is hungry to sample again and again.

Kelly's problems started in the build up to last season when he complained of some pain from swollen shins during a couple of friendly matches. He approached the problem with the brashness of a man who'd scarcely known an injury worth talking about during seven years football at Elland Road, five of them as a first-team regular.

"Best to get in there and get it sorted out," said the Irishman at the time. In Dublin five weeks ago, as he reflected on "some very dark days", he could still hardly believe what followed.

An initial setback to his recovery programme delayed his return to training until Christmas, but by the start of February he was finally ready for a reserve team game . . . or so he thought.

"Just before the game I started getting this incredible pain in my shins. I could barely walk and I knew I was in trouble again."

Another operation followed, after which Kelly was told by his doctor how the pressure in his shins had the blood squirting out across the operating theatre.

A couple of days later he began on the long and painful road to recovery. It started with him walking a dozen feet across a hospital room, an act that "took so much out of me it felt like playing two games back-to-back".

It ended when Mick McCarthy named his starting XI for the game against Croatia in Zagreb. His first competitive start in almost 18 months.

The setbacks were made all the harder to bear for Kelly by the fact that his career up until that point that been one long successful march upwards. Since the days when he had to drop his boots out the back window and saunter innocently out of the family home past his GAA-loving father John to play on the local pitches, he had never before been given any cause to look back.

He stood out at Drogheda Boys, where he played as a striker, and was spotted by Home Farm's Paddy Hilliard. None of Paddy's under-16 side were old enough to remember the last time they'd been beaten, but "Gary's pace, his hard work and great ability in the air" convinced the Dubliner that even the best underage side in Ireland could do with some improving.

Many of that Home Farm side, including Eddie van Boxtel, Len Curtis and Carl Wilson, moved on to English clubs. Hilliard was a scout for Leeds and Kelly, after trials at Manchester City and Newcastle United amongst others, opted to head for Elland Road along with PJ O'Connell.

Even by the standards of the phenomenal youth side assembled by Howard Wilkinson, Kelly showed himself to be a cut above the rest, particularly after his manager asked him to give full back a go for a change.

"It was the best thing that ever happened me and it turned out well for the club, too," he recalls now. "I'd liked playing up front and reckoned I was good at it, but it's like anything, if somebody asks you to do something to help you get on in your job then you do it. Making the switch helped me get closer to the first team and that was what mattered to me at the time."

In fact Kelly got his first taste of first-team football within a couple of months of arriving in England when he played in a League Cup game and did well. His real break, though, came at the start of the 1993-'94 season when he got in during pre-season and nailed down his claim to the right-full position.

By season's end, his fellow professionals voted him into the team of the season and by the following summer he had played his way into Jack Charlton's World Cup plans. Having done well on his debut, Kelly went to Hanover and scored in the friendly defeat of Germany.

Charlton described him as "potentially the most important discovery since Roy Keane" and with his involvement in the Giants Stadium World Cup win over Italy, Gary Kelly knew he had really arrived.

"America was the first time I really saw him," says Mick McCarthy. "And I remember thinking to myself then that I'd sell the goalposts to be able to sign a player like that. He had everything. Great ability on the ball, pace, and an infectious personality that seemed to rub off on everybody around him. He stood out a mile."

Still, McCarthy saw fit to leave him out more than once during his early days at the Irish helm, something he put down at the time to feeling that the player was "over-tired".

His club manager, David O'Leary, agrees about the dip in form. "I was disappointed with Gary before he got injured. It wasn't the Gary Kelly who set such high standards for himself before the problems started."

Kelly, who seems to enjoy a better relationship with O'Leary than he did with George Graham, insists that through that difficult period the new boss, with whom he had previously shared a room on away trips with Leeds, was always supportive. "He was good as gold to me. Told me that as long as he was at the club I'd figure in his plans."

Still, O'Leary signed another right back, Danny Mills from Charlton, for £4 million but Kelly was unfazed. When Mills had a couple of quiet games, the Irishman was back in as the first-choice man.

Ahead of this evening's game in Skopje, he's hoping that he can recover some more of the forward momentum lost during the past 15 months, for his time is precious - even if it is on his side.

He has always said that the day he quits the game he'll come back home, where he recently bought a house overlooking the Boyne for his wife Julianne and children Laura and Lee.

"People forget, though, I'm still young and I've a lot to do before then. I'd like to finish my career at Leeds - I wouldn't want to move again that's for sure, not after the length of time that it took me to settle there.

"The club is going well now, though. There's a great squad and Dave's doing a great job, so we really believe we can achieve things over the next few seasons.

"As for me? I'm only 25 in a game where players peak at 27 or 28. I've another good seven or eight years left in me and I firmly believe that the best is yet to come."