'James has never forgotten his roots, ever'

Ruaidhri Higgins has hailed James McClean as a true Irish legend who has shown ‘unbelievable resilience and dedication’ to reach an elite level of success in his career.

McClean played his last game for the Republic of Ireland in Tuesday night’s friendly against New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium, his 103rd cap coming 11 years after his first appearance for his country.

And Higgins, who played with McClean early in his career at Derry City, and worked with him again on the international scene in more recent times, believes the Creggan man deserves great recognition for his contribution to Ireland over the years.

“There’s only a select few who have ever reached that number of games in international football,” he said. “His longevity has been unbelievable, his dedication to his profession is incredible. He’s had very few injuries in his time and he has really, really looked after himself. He’s a credit to himself and a credit to this city with what he has achieved. He is in an illustrious group of legends now and he should be very proud of what he’s done.”

A key element of McClean’s success has not just been his professionalism, but the incredible resilience he has shown in the face of immense criticism and abuse for his personal beliefs, away from the football pitch.

Higgins believes that resilience has served McClean well in the face of unjustifiable attacks on the player over the years.

“Not just players, but coaches and managers, you will not succeed in this game unless you have resilience, and that’s the bottom line,” he insisted. “Supporters only see it on match day, but people have stuff going on in their lives off the pitch, that people wouldn’t be aware of. You need resilience and James has unbelievable resilience and character with the nonsense that he has had to put up with for a long, long time, far too long actually.

“Some of the stuff that he has been called, some of the stuff that has been done to him, it’s unbelievable that it was ever allowed to get to that point, but he showed unbelievable resilience, he has stuck his chest out and he has gone on to achieve what he has achieved, and he deserves so much credit for that.”

Higgins also believes that McClean’s love for his home town has endeared him in the hearts of people in Derry, despite his incredible success.

“The one special thing that I think is that he never, ever forgot his roots, ever,” he continued. “He gave so much back to the community here. Every child wants a picture and every child wants an autograph and he wouldn’t pass anyone. He’s a real proud Creggan man.

“You can see people who go away and leave their home town, and quickly move on, but he has never done that. When he gets the chance, he’s in the Brandywell with his Derry gear on and what he does for the community is unbelievable. There’s more negativity in the press about him than positive stuff, and for me, the positive stuff far outweighs the rest because he does so much for people. He has a real sensitive caring side and I think that should be in the media a lot more than the rest, but good news doesn’t sell as well, I think.”

Patience

Meanwhile, Higgins insists he is in no hurry to add to his squad, after signing Daniel Kelly. Both Brandon Kavanagh and Cian Kavanagh have signed for St. Patrick’s Athletic this week, but the City boss is being patient as he picks the right time to go for the right players.

“It’s just about patience,” he reiterated. “We don’t need many. We’re clear on what we need and we’ll be as patient as we need to. We did a lot of our work in the last off-season and in the summer window, so we’ll be patient and hopefully we’ll get what we want. There will be a maximum of two more coming in the door, I would have thought.”