Soccer

Northern Light: How ex-Republic star Marc Wilson resurrected his career in Iceland

From Aghagallon to the Arctic circle - former Republic of Ireland defender Marc Wilson talks to Neil Loughran about Euros heartache, GAA roots and how an unexpected sequence of events led to him hooking up with an old friend...

Former Republic of Ireland defender Marc Wilson played a key role as Thróttur Vogar earned promotion from the Icelandic third division last season - and is looking forward to a player/coach role with top flight side IBV next year
Former Republic of Ireland defender Marc Wilson played a key role as Thróttur Vogar earned promotion from the Icelandic third division last season - and is looking forward to a player/coach role with top flight side IBV next year Former Republic of Ireland defender Marc Wilson played a key role as Thróttur Vogar earned promotion from the Icelandic third division last season - and is looking forward to a player/coach role with top flight side IBV next year

THE tiny fishing village of Vogar, a sleepy outpost on Iceland’s south-western tip, where barren lands formed largely from lava are overlooked by Mount Keiler’s stunning subglacial mound to the east.

Through the winter months, tourists flock to catch a glimpse as the magnificent Northern Lights illuminate the sky. Others will base themselves in Vogar for hiking expeditions.

Occasionally travelling students misjudge the proximity to Rejkavik - around a half hour trip along the Reykjanes peninsula - in search of cheaper accommodation than the notoriously expensive Icelandic capital has to offer.

Outside of that, not a whole lot happens in Vogar beyond the day-to-day life of any close-knit coastal community. Close your eyes and this could easily be Ardglass or Portaferry - though the north Atlantic breeze may be less forgiving than the Irish Sea, Storm Barra permitting.

This is not the kind of place you would expect to find a fella from Aghagallon. It is certainly not the kind of place you expect to find a 25-cap Republic of Ireland international who went toe-to-toe with some of the deadliest forwards in the game during a decade in English football’s top flight.

Yet there, wearing the orange jersey of little-known Thróttur Vogar, is Marc Wilson - once of Portsmouth and Stoke City before misfortune and a few wrong turns saw him drift down the divisions.

Just as his love for the game looked to be bottoming out, though, so unfolded a new chapter in the unlikely environs of Iceland’s third tier.

He made it look easy too - winning headers, snuffing out danger and effortlessly calling upon years of top level experience to marshal what would become a water-tight defence.

It is little wonder Thróttur conceded an average of just a goal a game, securing promotion to the second division for the first time in the club’s history.

Away from football, he was able to pursue his other passion – fishing. Life was good.

As far from the pizzazz and pressures of the Premier League as could be imagined, there were times during the summer months when it reminded Wilson of home, as well as his early days playing and following GAA.

“You could see what it meant to the community, and everybody at the club. It took me back a bit, to be honest.

“Aghagallon’s on a massive up at the minute… I was playing Gaelic before I was playing football. We won a title at U10 and I was selected to play at half-time in the All-Ireland final at Croke Park but couldn’t make it. But I loved it.

“I used to go and watch Antrim and Armagh play… I lived on the border of three counties - I went to school in Armagh [St Paul’s High School, Lurgan], I’m from Antrim and to get to Armagh I had to drive through Down.

“Gaelic was everywhere you turned really. In Iceland there are similarities because there’s all these teams close together in a really small place, and big, big rivalry between a lot of them. ”

So how did he end up there in the first place? Faith in an old friend, as it turns out.

At 34, and with five-year-old son Hayden settled in school in Knutsford - around 20 miles from Manchester - career choices that were never taken lightly now demand extra consideration.

Given those circumstances, heading in the direction of the Arctic circle may seem a bold move.

But Wilson played alongside Hermann Hreidarsson in his Portsmouth days and, despite offers from the USA, the lure of hands-on managerial experience while continuing to play saw him hook up with his former defensive partner at the start of the Icelandic season in April.

“To try and get my son and my wife up and moving during Covid, it would’ve been an absolute nightmare. So this way I was able to just go out on my own and not be too far away.

“I’m doing my coaching badges at the minute so that was part of it, because I feel a lot of people doing their badges don’t get the right kind of experience.

“I wanted to work with a team full-time, being with players day in, day out. Hermann has been a great professional through his career, he’s been involved with different clubs, and he wanted to take a step back and have a look at things to build himself up. That’s what I want to do too.

“But I still feel good, I still want to play, even though I actually hurt my ankle at the very first training session with Thróttur, training on an Astroturf pitch. Because they’re right next to the ocean they get a lot of salt blowing in, and the surfaces can be like rock.

“So when I was playing during the season, I couldn’t move – I was having injections to get me through, but I mean I literally could not move. The defence we had though, it was virtually impossible for other teams to score against us.”

After missing out on two FA Cup finals with Portsmouth – in 2009 when they beat Cardiff and two years later when injury ruled him out of the defeat to Chelsea – it was nice to familiarise himself with that winning feeling once more.

Most importantly, though, the lessons learned as Hreidarsson’s right hand man were invaluable. And the former Iceland defender, who also works alongside head coach David Snorri with the country’s U21 side, knew exactly what he was getting when he brought Wilson on board.

“Obviously Marc has had a great career as a player, but I know his character – he’s so humble, doesn’t take anything for granted. You could speak to anyone at Thróttur, he is held in very high standing,” said Hreidarsson.

“He played a massive part on the field, of course, leading by example, by being a winner, but he was also a coach on the pitch.”

“That was probably the most enjoyable part of it because I was able to deal with players one on one,” says Wilson.

“Because Hermann is involved with the Iceland U21s there were quite a few games where I was managing the team… getting those kind of experiences in different parts of the world is not easy, and in Iceland they take their football really seriously.

“You see the progress the national team has made over the past 10 years, and I am not at all surprised seeing the way their set-up is run, from the very bottom level all the way up. It’s streets ahead of loads of places I’ve seen.

“That isn’t just the men either, the women’s team all have access to so much. There are so many football teams in such a small area, and then they all have B teams, C teams, D teams coming off that – they don’t leave anyone out.

“If you want to play football, you’re going to play football.”

Despite bidding Iceland farewell in the autumn, it won’t be long until Wilson and Hreidarsson are reunited again – this time at a different club, in a different division, in an even more remote location.

And with that move into the managerial realm gathering pace, Wilson has no shortage of experiences and influences to draw upon as he looks to the future.

During his time at Stoke City, Marc Wilson became a central figure as Tony Pulis's Potters exceeded expectations year on year
During his time at Stoke City, Marc Wilson became a central figure as Tony Pulis's Potters exceeded expectations year on year During his time at Stoke City, Marc Wilson became a central figure as Tony Pulis's Potters exceeded expectations year on year

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THE regularity of the Republic of Ireland’s engagement with oil-rich Oman became something of a running joke towards the tail end of the ill-fated John Delaney era, but the last of those three meetings in the space of four years carried by far the greatest significance.

On August 31, 2016 two Irish stalwarts played their last game in green - the only difference was one knew it was coming, the other had no idea.

This was always going to be Robbie Keane’s night. Eighteen years after making his debut as a rosy-cheeked rebel with a cause, the country’s greatest-ever goalscorer was determined to go out with a bang. Oman were the perfect opponents.

Keane dutifully bagged the second goal in a 4-0 victory, lapping up the applause and blowing kisses to the Aviva faithful who turned out in their droves to see him off.

Marc Wilson shook Keane’s hand and wished him well, not for one second thinking that would be his swansong too. Still only 29, he had years left on the international stage – or so he thought.

“Playing for Ireland was absolutely everything to me. I don’t know any young boy out there who doesn’t want to play for their country.”

Having represented Northern Ireland at schoolboy level, the switch to the Republic wasn’t taken lightly. He knew the hassle it could bring to his door, to his family.

Michael O’Neill made one last attempt at talking him round after replacing Nigel Worthington in 2011, but Wilson wasn’t for turning.

“I grew up playing for teams that were predominantly Protestant - I’m a Catholic and that never made any difference to me. That’s probably due to my parents, because they didn’t care.

“The only thing they cared about was me being happy, and I took that into my own life. At the end of the day we all bleed red blood. We’re all human beings.

“I knew there would probably be some shit about it but, to be totally honest, you can bring it a little bit upon yourself. If you’re a grown up and you know how to deal with that kind of thing properly, you deal with it in the right manner.

“One thing I will say, though, at schoolboy level with Northern Ireland back in the day, it definitely was a little bit different. I honestly don’t know what things are like there now, I’m assuming they’ve changed a lot because I’m still in contact with a lot of the boys who play with Northern Ireland – Jonny Evans, I know Corry [Evans], Paddy McNair, I’m good friends with all these boys. So I’m assuming things have changed dramatically.

“But I never used to worry about any of that bullshit in the least. Things like that don’t bother me. If anyone had any reason to be in any way bitter, it would probably be me… I’ve had deaths in the family through the Troubles; my mum’s sister’s husband was shot dead.

“But I never bring stuff like that up because it happened a long time ago. I know what things were like back then, people had their own beliefs, but I also know everyone’s not like that.”

After establishing himself with the Republic, the crowning moment of his international career should have come at the 2016 European Championships in France - only for injury to derail that dream and set off an unfortunate sequence of events that left him questioning whether he still wanted any part in the game at all.

“That was the most upsetting thing to happen in my career because I played basically every match to help the team qualify.

“Mark Hughes was manager at Stoke, we’d finished the season before in ninth – Stoke’s highest-ever position in the Premier League. I started the first four games of the new season, then he signed a new centre-half, and after that I never played.

“I went to Mark on several occasions, told him I needed to play at this stage of my career, especially with the Euros coming up. I had offers to go on loan, but Stoke said no – then I played in an FA Cup match against Crystal Palace in January and ruptured the medial ligament in my right knee.

“It was devastating. I did everything I could to try and get back fit in time [for the Euros], I came and joined up with the squad, talked with Martin [O’Neill], but I was just getting too much pain. There was no point.”

The Oman friendly came in the aftermath of a Euros campaign that buoyed the country, Robbie Brady’s winner against Italy providing the tournament’s Polaroid moment for every Irish supporter.

On the club front, though, things were going from bad to worse. Stoke let him leave for Bournemouth but an unhappy stint at the Vitality Stadium led to Wilson forcing his own exit.

“I don’t want to start slating anyone, but I wasn’t treated too well there, put it that way… I got a little bit rowdy, which I had to do because I wasn’t going to sit there and not play football.”

A loan move to West Brom, reconnecting him with former Stoke boss Tony Pulis, was a blessing until Bournemouth wouldn’t let him extend his stay, refusing to grant Wilson a move to another Premier League club.

“Basically they were just being d**kheads with me…”

As a result he would end up jumping from one sinking ship to another, eventually swapping Sunderland’s slide for a season to forget at Bolton Wanderers, the cash-strapped Trotters plunging into administration before the campaign was out.

“What a shit-show that was.

“I didn’t want to go to Sunderland but that was the option I had at that time – Sunderland, or go abroad. My little boy was only in nursery so I wasn’t going to move him.

“The club was in complete disarray, so it was hard to even get into the right frame of mind. It was a challenge every day, and then when I went to Bolton, that’s when my career really started to go downhill.

“At that stage I was losing interest. Because of what was going on behind the scenes, it wasn’t about football any more. That’s an awful place for any club to be, and it has a knock-on effect on everybody.

“It was a horrible situation.”

That was in 2019. Until he emerged from the wilderness by taking a punt on Thróttur Vogar, Marc Wilson wasn’t sure what the future held.

Now he knows.

Injury saw Marc Wilson miss out on the Republic of Ireland's Euro 2016 campaign, when victory over Italy saw them qualify for the knockout stages. Picture by PA
Injury saw Marc Wilson miss out on the Republic of Ireland's Euro 2016 campaign, when victory over Italy saw them qualify for the knockout stages. Picture by PA Injury saw Marc Wilson miss out on the Republic of Ireland's Euro 2016 campaign, when victory over Italy saw them qualify for the knockout stages. Picture by PA

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IT felt as though he was no sooner back on home soil before the phone rang again.

After being named the new boss at Westman Islands-based club IBV, Hermann Hreidarsson was back on the blower, gauging Wilson’s interest in a return to Iceland as player/coach at the start of the new year.

IBV is an interesting project. The club has just earned promotion to the top flight, while the island of Heimaey is home to their most famous son, and the place where he made his name before being lured to England by Crystal Palace in 1997.

“This is where I am born and bred – it is where my heart beats. This island moulded me as a football player and a human being,” said Hreidarsson.

“It is a unique place but also it is very charming. You have to bring the right kind of characters who are ready to put the work into the community as well and be a part of it.

“When we’ve had momentum before is when there is a good balance between homegrown players and players who have been brought in to help. Now we have that too.”

Wilson shares Hreidarsson’s enthusiasm for the challenge ahead. The last years of his playing career might have left some scars, but he can’t change that now.

And even from the bad experiences can come good.

“I’ve taken a lot from all the places I’ve been, and all the people I’ve worked under. Somebody like Martin O’Neill… I have massive respect for Martin, he’s different class.

“Harry Redknapp and Avram Grant, I have only good things to say about them. Tony [Pulis] had a massive influence, he’s straight down the middle, doesn’t bullshit you. Give me that any day of the week, one million per cent.

“If you’re telling someone bullshit, how are they going to know what they have to do? Or how to get better? They’re not. I’ve seen that with a few different managers - I’ve seen the bullshit. It certainly doesn’t help the player and it doesn’t help the squad.

“Hopefully I can take bits of what to do, and what not to do, from all of them. Obviously everything in life isn’t going to be perfect, but you have to learn from those experiences and make them work for you.

“That’s what I plan to do.”