Once upon a time the late Bob Hennessy was essential reading for anybody who cared for Irish football.
In the days before every twist and shout of the professional game was the subject of day-and-night television and round-the-clock social media Hennessy was a beat reporter who logged the fortunes of every Irish footballer who set foot on a boat to Britain.
As a teenage boy Hennessy had made that journey, failing to make the grade at Southend United. He knew about the loneliness of being a young emigrant and the hardship of starting out on subsistence wages and the pain of losing the dream.
In the hundreds of relationships that Hennessy fostered with Irish players in Britain empathy was always the starting point. When Bob called it wasn’t always looking for a story, it was often just to see how they were doing. An arm-around-the-shoulder call. He managed that blurred line in a way that didn’t interfere with his capacity to deliver engaging copy.
It was Bob’s job to find nuggets and occasionally those nuggets were gold. At his funeral many years ago somebody produced a piece that Bob had written in November 1982: “Keep tracks on another Fulham player, Ray Houghton, whose contribution since coming on a free from West Ham has been described as ‘explosive’,” he wrote. “Ray, a 20-year-old tireless worker in midfield, is Scottish-born but has an Irish father.”
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It was another four years before the newly-appointed Ireland manager Jack Charlton was introduced to Houghton by John Aldridge in an Oxford United dressing room. It was Bob’s job to know first.
A couple of weeks ago, when Preston North End hosted Arsenal in the Saturday tea-time instalment of the FA Cup, Bob came to mind. Fifteen minutes from the end the former Dundalk player Daryl Horgan was given his debut. Against one of the most stylish teams in England Horgan looked composed and smart and instantly at ease. Without an allegiance to either team I found myself rooting for Horgan in just the way that 20 or 30 years ago you rooted for the young Irish players whose triumphs and trials were chronicled in Bob’s weekly columns. It was a feeling I had forgotten.
A critical element of that relationship between us and the British game has been lost. The Premier League and its derivative media culture has become so overwhelming that the football lives in other leagues have in some way been obscured and even devalued. In Bob’s time when young Irish players were offered trials or apprenticeships with clubs outside the top tier of the English game every possibility was still open. There was traffic between Broadway and Off-Broadway in a way that doesn’t exist now.
The biggest spenders in the Premier League are not shopping in those realms any more. Not really. They keep an eye out but they don’t expect to find what they’re looking for. Somebody like Dele Alli at Spurs is a glittering exception that illustrates the pattern. Name another.
The Irish game – the age-old nursery clubs, the League of Ireland – shares that status now with the lower leagues in Britain. The only Irish star in the Premier League now who has come from a League of Ireland club is Seamus Coleman. He is also the only Irish player of any standing in the top half of the Premier League.
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James McClean has lost his starting place at West Brom; Glenn Whelan seems to be running out of steam at Stoke City after a terrific career at the club; the eternally gallant Jonathan Walters is injured again having been out of favour at the beginning of the season; Jeff Hendrick has settled in well at Burnley and Harry Arter at Bournemouth clearly has everything it takes to be a classy midfielder at a middle ranking club. But that is the sum of it. Robbie Brady? He may slot into a midtable Premier League club during this transfer window but it is hard to see him climb above that station.
Think back to the 1970s and 80s and even into the 90s: there were colonies of Irish players at Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur. Top players whose breakthrough energised the dreams of the young apprentices and lower-league triers who populated Bob’s columns.
Now? The odds are much different. For all of the top clubs, scouting has become an incredibly sophisticated and global part of their daily business. Their academies trawl for talent not just in their traditional hinterland but all over Europe and beyond. There are no boundaries. Trent Alexander-Arnold, the remarkable teenager who started for Liverpool at Old Trafford on Sunday, joined the club when he was six years old. In the sourcing and cultivation of talent nothing is left to chance.
Horgan is 24, starting out on a new adventure with his partner and their baby. Simon Grayson, the Preston manager, was so convinced by Horgan’s cameo against Arsenal that he started him against Championship leaders Brighton last Saturday. Horgan rewarded his manager’s faith with a sweeping 40-yard assist for Preston’s second goal and a brilliant all-round performance.
He’s a gifted player whose rise won’t stop at Preston. This could be the start of something special. In Bob’s time Irish football could depend on that feeling, year-in, year-out. It is rare now. Cherish it.