Damien Duff details his efforts to bring Ireland legend Wes Hoolahan back to Shelbourne
Ireland’s Euro 2016 star Wes Hoolahan was back at Tolka Park last weekend for a centenary game.
Damien Duff has revealed the lengths he went to in his bid to bring Wes Hoolahan back to Shelbourne last year.
The Reds boss even offered to put the 43-time capped star of Euro 2016 up in his Wicklow house during his efforts to lure Hoolahan back to the club where he started his career in senior football.
Hoolahan played for Shelbourne between 2001 and 2005 and dazzled during their unforgettable European run in 2004, when they were edged out of a Champions League group stage spot by Deportivo La Coruna.
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He made the move from Shels to Livingston in 2005, and went on to play for Blackpool, Norwich and West Brom, before a spell in Australia with Newcastle Jets.
The Dubliner returned to the UK to sign for Cambridge United in 2020 and lined out for non-league Doncaster City earlier this year.
Duff was delighted to link up with Hoolahan last weekend when the pair lined out in a match celebrating the 100th anniversary of their Tolka Park home.
Would he have liked a more formal arrangement?
“I tried to sign Wes for the run-in last year, the last 10 or 11 games,” said Duff. “I said to him ‘come over, one day a week, two days a week, train, you can stay at mine, make an impact’.
“So yeah, I did try and sign Wes because I believe in fairytales and it would have been nice to have him here.
“It all comes back to how well you look after yourself. I think there’s a year, 18 months difference, maybe a couple more, between me and him and he looked like a thoroughbred and I looked like I don’t know what.”
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Duff, meanwhile, revealed how a video of his performance last weekend in the game between a Shelbourne FC XI and a Drumcondra AFC XI was edited and shown to his players in a lighthearted moment earlier this week.
“I was soon brought down to earth,” he said. “Well, not that I was strutting around thinking I played well, but I believe (the match) was on YouTube, which I found out afterwards, and obviously our famous post-match meeting on Monday involved post-match Drogheda but it also involved post-match Drumcondra XI.
“There was a three, four-minute video of mine, Joey (O’Brien)’s and Skins’ (Paul Skinner, goalkeeping coach) performance kindly put together by Davy McAllister. Lighthearted, and when I look back it wasn’t a great watch.”
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