Republic of Ireland Team Talk/News/Rumours

Going to watch it on the RTE Player today. He does come out with some serious guff these days on Newstalk, however he is a big miss on RTE Panel and definitely one of best footballing men Ireland has ever produced.

 

It's was a good watch.

 

Yes very enjoyable. Not everyone's cup of tea but a great player and great knowledge of the game.

 

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/...ndrick-of-violent-disorder-charge-796831.html

Hendrick found not guilty

 

Was very ropey for West Ham last season however good move for him with hopefully the World Cup next yesr

 

3,500 tickets made available for Wales away, anyone here at the Welsh match in Aviva? There were 1000's of Welsh fans? Jd will have to pull a few strokes for more tickets!!

 

Bought a ticket the other day for game against Serbia.Never been to an international game before so looking forward to it.

 

Don't know much about him however we need someone who can put the ball in the net.

 

In an emotional and frank interview, Burnley’s Jonathan Walters tells Henry Winter about his inner demons

Sometimes, on returning from training, Jonathan Walters takes his dog off for a walk on the Wirral, alone with his thoughts. He thinks of his pride in representing Ireland, his enjoyment of his time at Stoke City, and now the excitement of playing for Sean Dyche at Burnley. And Walters will always think of his mother. What befell Helen Brady shaped Walters’s career and life, explaining his unrelenting commitment during matches.

Brady hailed from Dublin, where her father had a coal truck. “I’m English-born, so sometimes I get a bit of stick for it but we spent every moment in Ireland we could,” Walters says. “We’d go to County Louth, Gyles Quay caravan park. We caused carnage. Jumping off a pier, Uncle Jimmy had a boat, we’d go fishing. Cooley Mountains weren’t too far, so 50 of us would head off, kids playing in the woods, adults making a barbecue from hot stones by the river. Brilliant times.”

Times changed when Walters was 11, when Helen succumbed to cancer. “When my mother died, I promised I’d play for Ireland. For her,” he says. “It’s very emotional when I hear the Irish national anthem. It was a very tough time. We didn’t know [how ill she was] until a couple of weeks before she died. We got pulled in, and told this is going to happen with mum. I remember crying for two days. Non-stop. My mum was in the hospice.”

Talking this week at Burnley’s training ground, Walters pauses, letting the emotion flow out, then standing up. “Let me open the window for a minute,” he says. “It hits me. No one ever gets to see this side of me, ever, only my wife Jo. We all have a wall, don’t we? What’s so hard is I remember the days vividly. I went to see my mum in the hospice after she passed away, and the next day, I went straight back into school, carried on as if everything was all right.”

The 33-year-old shakes his head in disbelief. “F**king hell. My dad didn’t know what to do so he sent us into school to try and carry on being normal,” he says. “My mum was almost a taboo subject after she passed away. A few years back, my auntie Paula did say, ‘You OK?’ ‘Yeah, I’m OK.’ But I still haven’t dealt with it. I didn’t grieve. I’m really interested in psychology because I know how everything’s up there in your head in football, fear, whatever. When I finish playing, I’ll take myself off to a university [to study] psychology. It’ll help me.

“When Rio Ferdinand was on telly the other day [talking about the death of his wife, Rebecca], I knew exactly how his kids will be feeling. I so wanted to pick up the phone to Rio and say you don’t know me but if you ever need anyone to speak to, to know what your kids are going through, I’m here. But I didn’t.

“It was incredibly difficult for my dad [James]. He had to go from being dad to being mum and dad. He’s a geologist and started his own business around that time and was working all the hours God could send. He threw himself into work, his way of dealing with things. He’s similar to me, compartmentalising things. I always keep everyone at arm’s length. School friends say, ‘You don’t ring or text, you don’t see anyone’. I know why. I don’t let anyone in close, just Jo, my kids; Scarlett, Sienna and Eli, and a few close friends.
“After mum passed away, I had a few bad years, hanging round with my mates on the street, going out drinking, living the wrong way. Mum would have told me off.”

He reflects on his brief time at Blackburn Rovers, which ended abruptly after what was described as a “serious breach of club discipline”. Walters returns to Ewood Park on Wednesday in the League Cup and it will be poignant. “Here’s another one I’ve never spoken about . . . why I left Blackburn. It’s always there, always bothers me. I was absolutely flying, one of the top scorers [in the youth team], but I was very lonely. Dad used to never watch me play. Ever. I was used to mums and dads watching [their sons]. This will probably hurt him. I don’t mean to. But he never used to come. It upset me.”

The loneliness spilt out. “I did something very stupid at Blackburn. I stole some money from someone,” he says. “That’s why I left Blackburn. No one knows this. I didn’t need the money. I had a contract, lived there, didn’t spend any money. It was a cry for help. What happened at Blackburn wasn’t me. I was brought up right. I wasn’t from a rough family. It haunts me a lot. So, so stupid.”

Bolton Wanderers gave him a chance. “I went straight in the first team, doing unbelievably well, but still not living right,” he says. “What the hell was I doing? I used to beat myself up. It was my way of dealing with things. I haven’t grieved for my mum the way I should have. It wasn’t until I had Scarlett that I stopped [the nights out].”

He was 21. It wasn’t simply the responsibility of parenthood. It was also the anguish of Scarlett being born with gastroschisis, intestines protruding from her stomach. “I was at Hull, Peter Taylor was manager and I’d train and go back home, grab a spare pair of clothes for Jo and myself, and spend the rest of the day at hospital, eat hospital food, sleep in a pull-down bed,” he says. “I look back now and it was pretty scary.” Scarlett is fine now, a healthy, active 12-year-old. (tbc-)


“When I had a child it changed my whole life. I went from being selfish to saying, ‘I’ve got responsibilities now.’ When it was pretty hairy with Scarlett, it puts a lot of things into perspective. People say, ‘Oh, you must be nervous,’ before big games for Ireland, for Stoke when I was there, and the Chelsea game when I scored two own goals and missed a penalty [in 2013], but there are wars going on, children dying every day, so that puts me scoring two own goals into perspective.

“After that game against Chelsea, I go home and the wife and kids are taking the mickey out of me. When the ‘Premier League worst bloopers’ programme came up, the kids were watching it, laughing. Last year when Sienna was asking Eli who his favourite footballer was, he said, ‘Vardy’. Because Vardy was scoring all the goals, and my friend [Robert] Huth is at Leicester, Eli had the Leicester kit. ‘You can’t say that,’ Sienna said. ‘Daddy’s your favourite player.’ Eli said: ‘Daddy’s rubbish, he’s only scored one goal this year!’

“Everything I do is not for me. It’s for the kids, for my wife. When Roy Keane was manager at Ipswich, he had a rant in the dressing room. We’d had a bad game and Roy said, ‘You’re not playing for yourselves. You’re playing for your friends you grew up with, who say, “I know him, I used to play with him, I used to go to school with him.” You’re playing for the people you grew up with on the streets. You’re playing for cousins, uncles, aunties. You’re playing for all these people who are so proud of you.’ That stuck with me.”

His immediate family, and Irish cohorts, were in the Aviva Stadium when Walters scored the goals that qualified Ireland for Euro 2016. “We had a box for the Bosnia game and quite a lot of my family squeezed in,” he smiles. Keane’s words echoed in Walters’ mind. “They’re the people you’re playing for, they can then go into work, or school, and make them feel special as well.

“People say it’s like a second family when I go away with Ireland, everyone’s so close. I get the same vibe here at Burnley. Sometimes, when I meet people, they think I’m very arrogant. I’m not. I’m quiet. I’m not a loner but I’m happy to be alone, in my own space, listening to classical music sometimes [especially Johann Pachelbel]. I like any genre of music. When I was younger, it was dance, rap, hip-hop, and then I came across classical. I’d hear it in the big films like Gladiator, powerful songs like Now We Are Free that gets me going pre-match. I’m close to Huth, great guy, so funny, and me and him had the iPod [at Stoke]. He’d bring in some German stuff, or a bit of Iron Maiden.

“I like going home to my wife and kids, my release. I’ve laid a bit of Astroturf in the back garden and my little boy is out non-stop with a football. I’ve got Eli into Everton. He’s got “Rooney” on his back. I’m an Evertonian. We went to Ibiza this summer, bumped into Jürgen Klopp, and Jo, who’s Liverpool, wanted a photo with him. So I went to the toilet. He went, ‘Oh, yes, you’re Jon’s wife.’ I said hello to him.”

But back to Eli. “I debate with myself whether I want him to go into football,” he says. “It’s been so good to me but then I see what’s going on in the game. I despise the way academies are with kids. I know one boy goes to Manchester City, Liverpool, United, every day of the week. He’s six. What are you doing to him? We’ve got a friend whose boy’s an unbelievable talent, and he’s at Wigan, which is a good thing, because the big ones are different. They have hundreds of kids, satellite centres here and there, then after a few weeks they say to the kid, ‘Sorry’. How can you say that to a seven-year-old who’s mad on football? Let them be kids, let them play.

“And they give them ridiculous money too young. Three years ago there was an 18-year-old at City on more than me at Stoke, and he’ll never play a [professional] game in his life.” During his time as a PFA representative, Walters would urge young players, “to not go out spending £10,000 a month on clothes, having five cars, paying for their hangers-on’s apartments and their nights out, [spending] £30,000 because they’re buying champagne. I know a lot of players within three years of finishing are divorced and bankrupt. I decided to pay off my mortgage, pay off my debts, put money into property and that will have an income when I finish. I won’t live an extravagant lifestyle. I’ll be happy driving round in a van.

“I’ve always worked hard, been hungry, given everything. The biggest thing I get from people I meet is ‘you look different on TV’. ‘Yeah, I look fat on TV, don’t I?’ ‘Ooh, you’ve lost weight,’ they say. No, I’ve been the same weight for the past ten years, between 81 and 83 kilos. I’ve always trained hard.

“I’m an honest player, never dived. [Jamie] Carragher said I dived once, when he was pulling me, I went down, definite penno. A lot of the times I stay up, getting pulled, and don’t get anything. Huth’s the best at pulling you. When you sprint alongside him, he gets hold of your wrist, and slows you down, but it looks like he’s still running. Jesus, Rob! But diving, no. I can’t.”

Walters is principled. “I’d like to set up a charity for families who are struggling,” he says. “You know the way things are at the moment with people going to food banks, families having to sell their homes, people falling on hard times. I’d like to give them refuge until they get sorted.” Helen Brady would be proud of her son.

‘We didn’t bully Chelsea – they were sore losers’

Burnley’s players were surprised by what they saw as Chelsea’s “indiscipline” and “lightweight” nature during the visiting side’s victory at Stamford Bridge last weekend, according to Walters.

The Ireland international came off the substitutes’ bench during the second half against the champions and claimed that members of Antonio Conte’s back-room staff berated Sean Dyche and his squad during the first period.

“I know a few words of Italian from [former Ireland coach Giovanni] Trapattoni and their bench was giving it loads to our bench. There was a guy hammering the gaffer, so I just gave him a couple of words back in Italian and he looked at me, and sat down. Just before we scored, they were going mad.”

Chelsea were particularly incensed by Craig Pawson, the referee, sending off Gary Cahill and Cesc Fàbregas and for other decisions. “Normally when you go to those places, you don’t get the free kicks you should get,” Walters says. “But the referee did unbelievably well, so they weren’t happy.

“With some of their players, their discipline was horrendous. All moaning. Generally when they all moan, they tend to get every decision, but they didn’t.

“We were 2-0 up and got a free kick on the edge of the area and the gaffer was just standing, watching, and this guy on the Chelsea bench said, ‘Hey, yeah, you want more, you want everything’.

“That’s rich. When we scored off that free kick, I was laughing at him, going, ‘Yeah, we want more.’ He gave me the finger. A few of the lads said, ‘Has he just done that?!’ So then I’m like, ‘Tranquillo, tranquillo.’ [Quiet, quiet] I was laughing at him.

“Then I was warming up, getting abused off the Chelsea fans. Grown men in front of their kids. Even women giving me abuse. Expletives, hand gestures, the lot. I love all that. It’s great. I spoke to the guy [on Chelsea’s bench] afterwards. It was a bit of banter.”

Burnley were impressed with Cahill’s response, coming in and shaking their hands, less so with the spiky Fàbregas.

“I’ll always shake hands afterwards with players, the manager, wish them the best,” Walters says.
“I always think, ‘Be graceful in defeat, don’t over-egg it when you win.’ You get sore losers but then they’re at Chelsea for a reason; maybe they’re sore losers and that drives them. Arsenal are the worst for sore losers.”

Walters was surprised by the ease with which they defeated Chelsea. “With a few of the players, the discipline was completely gone. They’re nowhere near what they were last year.

“I read a bit about he [Conte] maybe put a really weak bench to send a signal [to the board]. He said ‘no’, but I’ve seen managers do that. I was warming up and thinking, ‘I don’t know a lot of these lads’.

“Last year at the back, they were strong, big, and horrible with [Nemanja] Matic sitting in front of them, a tough lad. Serbs are hard. Most of the Burnley lads were very surprised he went, to [Manchester] United as well.

“They haven’t got Diego Costa upfront. Everyone hated him but you’d love to have him in the team, he’s brilliant, he’s the best at winding people up. But you could get to him in his head.

“Chelsea were a bit lightweight. We didn’t bully them either. I was watching our goals again, excellent goals, quick play, cross in the box, goal.

“It wasn’t like we lumped them in the box. Chelsea need to buck up a bit.”