From Brendan Crossan in Abbotstown
YOUNG apprentices at big clubs don’t know they’re born these days.
With a bag of balls over his left shoulder, Conor Hourihane watches the young ones playing table tennis or pool after training and shakes his head.
Occasionally, he’ll fire a few barbed comments in their direction, but he doesn’t preach to them.
They’ll make their own mistakes and one day they’ll realise where it all went wrong after their apprenticeship days come to a crashing end.
The Cork native left his home in Bandon at 16. He’s now 28 and has just helped Aston Villa reach the English Premiership via a nail-biting play-off win over Derby County.
Midfielder Hourihane is enjoying the best days of his career. In some of the Villa apprentices, he sees the same mistakes he made.
For Hourihane, full-time professional football is survival of the fittest.
It took him a while to realise this – and hitting rock bottom was part of the process.
“I probably didn’t realise what I had to do to forge a career,” Hourihane told reporters at the Republic of Ireland’s Abbotstown base yesterday.
“A lot of young lads don’t realise that. They’re in this bubble of training until 12 o’clock, coming off the training pitch and doing no extras, playing pool, training in this luxury training ground, heading home and playing on their FIFA.
“And two years later when their apprenticeship is finished they’re going: ‘What am I going to do now?’
“And that’s the realisation of it. Young lads nowadays probably don’t work hard enough. I don’t see any young lads grabbing a bag of balls and doing extra work, at all the clubs I’ve been at.
“They’re having free food, nice breakfast, nice lunch, playing table tennis, playing pool. They don’t put in the hard work…
“They’re working harder on the table tennis table than they do in training, and that’s the honest truth. The senior lads are out there for an extra hour working on their game. Young lads should see that and take inspiration from it but they don’t.
“It’s their choice at the end of the day. You say to them a couple of times; you’ll make a smart remark when you’re walking past them when they’re playing table tennis.”
Success didn’t come easy to Hourihane, now one of Ireland’s first-choice midfielders after two composed displays against Gibraltar and Georgia – not to mention his brilliant free-kick that won the latter Euro 2020 qualifier at the end of March.
He was signed by Sunderland in 2007 before moving on to Ipswich Town, Plymouth Argyle, Barnsley and now Villa.
But it was at Plymouth around 2011, his career going no-where fast, when he thought of packing football in and returning home.
“I was very close [to quitting]. I went from Ipswich and I was looking for a club and I was fortunate enough that Peter Reid took me, from his Sunderland connections… I knew I had to take that opportunity. For whatever reason, the penny dropped. From that, my attitude changed and I’ve never looked back.
“I work hard every single day. Some lads are lucky enough to start in the Premier League or the Championship and sustain that kind of level, whereas I’ve maybe done it the harder way, going to down to League Two. I’m a true believer in hard work - relentless hard work every day.
“Some lads are extremely talented; I’ve got a little bit of talent but I’ve definitely made the most of it over the years.
“You have to survive at the start because it’s a cut throat business. There are loads of players who come over and go home again. I was close to that. Plymouth was my last resort. It was sink or swim. And that was probably the kick up the backside that I needed. I went in on my days off and probably from that moment moving forward, that switch in myself has never left me, really.”
Hourihane, a big fan of Frank Lampard's play, might have been one of those players buried beneath the rubble of Martin O’Neill’s last year in charge of the Republic of Ireland.
He played in Ireland’s disastrous 4-1 Nations League defeat to Wales last August where the visiting midfield was in a ramshackle state.
But Hourihane remained a steady presence in Aston Villa’s midfield and with Mick McCarthy short of midfield options at the start of their Euro 2020 campaign the new manager rolled the dice on the 28-year-old Cork man.
His faith in Hourihane has been handsomely repaid. Barring injury, he will start against Denmark in Copenhagen on Friday night and Gibraltar in Dublin on Monday.
With just 11 international caps and one goal, Hourihane has been a bit of a slow burner.
“Maybe the likes of Wes [Houlihan] and Daryl Murphy had the best years of their career later on, Jonathan Walters as well, so hopefully I can follow in those footsteps.
"I just work hard every single day. People don’t see the sacrifices you put in. I’m a true believer in hard work pays off. You really have to make huge sacrifices in your career to sustain [yourself] at a good level.”
