John O'Shea - Irish Times - Part 1

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At the beginning of the season just past he paused from the headlong rush of football and drew a breath. It was a new working year, mint fresh and full of hope. Manchester United marked it by giving John O'Shea a locker in the first-team changing room.
That's not a big thing to you maybe but it's a huge thing when your boyhood dreams have had John Motson commentaries as soundtracks.
A locker in the first-team dressing-room. Roy Carroll for a neighbour on one side. Michael Stewart on the other. And the things that came with it. The full-time masseuse loitering. The physios always ready. The towels. The cool air. The names on each locker. So he sucked it in and said.
"Doing alright for a young lad from Ferrybank."
And he got on with life. A life with John Motson commentaries as soundtracks.
Ferrybank. That odd little satellite of Waterford life, itself a quirked-up version of Irish life. Ferrybank might be New Jersey to Waterford's New York but you can't get a good blah either side of the Hudson. Ferrybank looks down on Waterford and backs up almost into Kilkenny and Slieverue. It's of the city of Waterford but separate, so much so that when John O'Shea speaks of his girlfriend, Yvonne, he describes her as a townie, as if he himself grew up in a haystack.

He grew up in a cul-de-sac in Ferrybank and something of that geographical circumstance was absorbed into his nature. He makes his living now at Manchester United, the richest, most glamorised, most hyped club in the world, but it's as if all that traffic never passes his door, as if he is watching Manchester United from the same remove that Ferrybank kids grow up watching Waterford from. Part of it but quietly apart from it too.

His father, Jim, was born in William Street in the heart of Kilkenny city and he hurled until the bas of a stick chopped down on his fingers one day forcing him to re-evaluate the importance of fingers in his life. The family legend has it that Jim's stepdad, Jack Cantwell, dropped Jim down to Waterford one day and, letting him out of the car, pointed balefully towards Kilcohan Park.

'That's where they play the soccer," he said, as if it were indicating a house of ill repute.

Jack drove off. Jim walked straight through the turnstiles and fell stone flat in love.

Soccer! Ferrybank AFC! Jim O'Shea has the green and white colours running through him like a resort name through a stick of candy rock. He became identified with the club to the extent that when John was in his teens and the Ferrybank side he'd grown up in disbanded he went over the river to play for Bohemians and the first voice he heard belonged to a man called Noel Lavery.

Noel was bawling across the field: "Does your father know you're here?" Ferrybank was the heart of it and the head of it. Jim had two boys. Alan, who would grow to be six foot seven , a stature which doesn't prevent him from viewing himself as a full back in the Roberto Carlos mode. And then there was John, by five years and some inches the junior.

Having Roberto Carlos as an elder brother had its value. In the garden the ball would come flying at John from all angles with, it seemed, a skittish will all of its own. Part of growing up was learning how to tame the thing, how to stop it bowling him over like a pin. When he could do that he was ready to go down to the field and start playing with the big boys.

He was tall but there were plenty that were taller. He always played above his age group. And survived. As an eight-year-old he was out on the wing for the under-11s. The next year Jim coached John for a while. Jim and Paddy Aherne. Two coaches nurturing a good one. John was nine and a right winger all season. He reckons you wouldn't have picked him for Man U.

"Maybe Waterford U, though!"

They say he was never a superstar. He always just had the ability to adapt to whatever level he was pitched in at. He started out on the periphery and then moved into midfield, central midfield, and suddenly he was controlling games.

Ferrybank did well but the townie teams always did well too. Carrick. Bohs. Johnville. Southend. Every year there'd be a team that would come from nowhere and win the thing because of their townie swagger and unquenchable confidence.

Ferrybank ebbed and flowed. They were the best under-11 side in Waterford but won nothing at under-12. Did well again at under-13 and under-14 and then broke up just after Kennedy Cup year.

Of those that played Kennedy Cup and then moved on from Ferrybank, John was the last to go. Fellas finished primary on the Ferrybank side of the river and then moved across to the De La Salle school and got new friends who played with city clubs.

Ferrybank heads were turned. So the team broke up.

John was reluctant to move on. He'd grown up with these fellas. Brian Mallon, Ricky Kempton, the modish striker, Jimmy Vaughan, Danny Phelan and, of course, his cousin and pal, Paul Kennedy, the team's steady-eddie right back who looked as if he'd hold that position forever.

Ricky Kempton and Brian Mallon were the first to move on. John lingered but finally went. Paul Kennedy stayed a Ferrybank man but he was okay about it - just a little gentle slagging.

John was a Liverpool man and Kenno's faith lay at Elland Road, so just two issues, each as thin as a cigarette paper, separated them.

Ferrybank. The Wonder Years! They lost in a play-off final for a league title against Johnville once. It was 4-3 in the end. Played in the inestimable glamour of Ozier Park.

John O'Shea marked Stephen Hunt, the Johnville centre forward. Alan Whelan, who John went on trial with to Liverpool later, played too. Johnville won 4-3. Stephen Hunt always reminds him about it still.

He might remind Stephen Hunt that at under-11 Ferrybank won the cup and in doing so they scored 45 goals and conceded just one. Beat Tramore in the final. Couldn't imagine not winning it all at under-12 the next year.

Good days.

****

He reckons that Noel Lavery of Waterford Bohemians prepared him for Alex Ferguson. If Ferguson's voice is a hairdryer, Noel's is an industrial sandblaster.

In his first year with Bohs he played under-15, 16, 17 and 18. Oh, and schools teams as well. Eight or nine teams in the season. At least two matches every weekend. He adapted and, as was his custom, eventually thrived.

He played in a Derek Egan Memorial Cup final for Bohs. They beat Tramore 4-0. David Whittle played in the middle of the park and not long after was whisked off to QPR. John O'Shea isn't sure whether Whittle mentioned him at QPR but his first trial was there. Two weeks in Shepherd's Bush. Shacked up in the digs with David Whittle. Outside there were street signs advising that it was unsafe to walk alone in this area or that street. What 16-year-old wouldn't love it? After a week QPR offered a four-year deal.

The O'Shea family convened in London. Four years on one hand. A Leaving Cert on the other. QPR versus UCD perhaps? O'Shea went back to the books.

He had a brief affair with Celtic, went to Parkhead seven or eight times, with Willie McStay courting him keenly. The wooing came to nothing. Liverpool took him across and asked that he come to Anfield every weekend during his Leaving Cert year. He declined. They sent him a letter curtailing their interest and offering him advice on what he should work on. Aggressive heading of the ball. He could see their point. Long-range passing. He'd like to have argued that one with them.

Finally United. They'd watched the European Under-16 championship campaign in Scotland. He'd known they were watching because Kevin Grogan, a United prospect, had told him so. Martin Ferguson, brother of himself, had contacts down in Waterford.