Conor Bradley was the last player to disappear into the Hampden Park tunnel. He lingered to salute Northern Ireland’s supporters, posed for photographers and his name echoed around the old stadium.
Still beaming, Bradley gave a final wave and left them to celebrate his first international goal. It was a wonderful goal, a winning goal. A solo goal in the modern sense. All about his energy and aggression. Desire to force a mistake, to win the ball, appreciate the chance and apply the technique to convert it.
Maybe the Liverpool star can become a catalyst in the way Gareth Bale was for Wales. For now, he reassures Northern Ireland they have made some progress and there may be positive times ahead.
With its sweeping coastal views bathed in spring sunshine, Larne defies the joke that the best thing about it is the boat out.
The town, less than half an hour out of Belfast, is home to the Northern Ireland Football League Premiership champions, a club on its knees when rescued by Kenny Bruce, co-founder of the online estate agency Purple Bricks, and inspired by the coaching vision of Tiernan Lynch.
Last year’s title was justification for Larne’s decision to go full-time in a part-time league and launch a full-time academy to attract gifted teens from the capital on the promise of maximising their chance to earn a living in the game, which usually means a move to England.
‘More than 90 per cent of kids who go across to England at 16 return, and for a very simple reason,’ says Lynch. ‘They’re not ready to go and when they get there they’re not equipped to stay.’
Belfast is a working-class city and a genuine hotbed of footballing talent, trawled for years by local scouts on behalf of big clubs from England and Scotland, though Manchester United dominated much of it once Bob Bishop had unearthed George Best. Sammy McIlroy, Jimmy Nicholl, David McCreery, Norman Whiteside, Keith Gillespie, David Healy, Jonny Evans, now back in his second spell at United, and Paddy McNair, now at Middlesbrough and captain of Northern Ireland on Tuesday in Scotland.
Belfast is a hotbed of footballing talent that has produced the likes of defender Jonny Evans
‘George Best was a freak of nature but players exist here,’ says Lynch. ‘They haven’t disappeared.’
The trouble was the Premier League left them behind. With swish, revamped Category One academies and EU labour laws, top English clubs looked beyond UK borders for the world’s best young players.
The Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) and the launch of St George’s Park combined to pair elite talent with qualified coaches while Northern Ireland’s teenagers came through in part-time football where youth teams still relied on volunteers for coaching and were lucky if they trained three times a week.
‘Not only that,’ says Lynch. ‘In England, they were getting better physically, nutritionally, psychologically. We were set up to fail.
‘The average Category One player was getting up to 25 hours a week contact. Our kids on average three. It’s like we’re training for a marathon but you train for three hours a week and I train for 25 hours a week and somebody tells you to keep up with me on race day. It’s almost impossible.’
Lynch, with a background in US college sport, set out to change the landscape with the help of Bruce’s fortune, investing in facilities and forging links with Newcastle and Crystal Palace, who have signed two Larne teenagers.
‘We’re trying to get closer,’ he says. ‘Trying to get up from three hours to six, then to nine, and then we’ve half a chance to find more Conor Bradleys.’
