An Irishman Abroad with Padraig Amond - Part 2

Extratime.ie reporter Thomas Sargent recently caught up with new Grimsby Town signing Pádraig Amond in The Precinct, also known as Freshney Place Shopping Centre, and the former Kildare County, Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers spared of an hour of his time to divulge his thoughts on the League of Ireland, his arrival in Lincolnshire, his time in Portugal, along with a host of other interesting topics. You can read part one of this two part interview here.

 
TS: You played in the Portguese Primera Liga at Pacos de Ferriera, how’s your Portuguese?

PA: My Portuguese is non-existent! The first I was there it was alright I couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t speak it. I could speak bits, obviously it’s fallen away over the last few years. I loved it over there it was unbelievable. It was the best experience of my life.

TS: How did the move come about?

PA: I was at Sligo Rovers, we played the League Cup semi-final and I scored two. After the game, I was approached by a Portuguese fella, who was the Sporting Director of the club, and he said they were interested in signing me. They put a bid in that night, I think, and there was a few bids rejected and eventually it was accepted and I moved over. I was a great time of my life and I really, really enjoyed it.

Football wise, it was the best football of my career as in the standard and I loved playing. If I was a little bit older I probably would have settled a little bit easier but where the club was based about 40 minutes outside of Porto it was a village. It was a small, small club but that season we punched massively above our weight and we finished fifth in the league. We made the cup final and to be involved with stuff like that was unbelievable. It was crazy – Benfica beat us in the final, my family came over for a lot of the games and I look back on it with a lot of good memories.

The final was in Coimbra, it’s always in Coimbra. It was unbelievable, I’ll never forget the atmosphere that evening. I got to play in some unbelievable stadiums; Braga, Sporting Lisbon. Never lost a game in Braga, won two games there. We played Porto when they won the title and they got presented with the trophy before the game and that was an atmosphere I had never seen anything like before. It was brilliant.

TS: What were the best and the worst things about your time in Portugal?

PA: The best thing was the football and the food. The food was unbelievable. The language was the hardest thing but there were a couple of lads who spoke English. One of them was at West Brom last year and he’s just signed for Huddersfield, Jason Davidson and he played for Australia at the World Cup. He went out on loan after the first half of the season so that was one of the easiest ways of communicating gone.

It was quite cliquey with the players as well. When we met up for match days there was 18 players in the squad and it happened to be that there were 9 Portuguese players and 9 foreigners and all the Portuguese sat on one table and me and the Australian in the middle of both and we didn’t really know where we supposed to be sitting.

The football side was the best thing.

TS: You must have played against some quality players?

PA: Yeah, I made my debut against Braga and I got man of the match – it was one of the best moments of my life. I came on and set up two goals. I played against Falcao, Pablo Aimar was playing, Saviola, Luisao – I swapped shirts with him – some unbelievable players.

We had a player on loan from Braga, we played them in the cup and the club agreed to sign him when the transfer window opened a week later. For some reason they allowed him to play and he scored a hatrick against them and so Braga said they didn’t want to sell him and he signed for Atletico Madrid at the end of the season for fifteen million.

TS: Do you think you benefitted overall from playing there?

PA: Yeah, of course, as a person and it made me a better player. The training was so different. The two managers who were in charge while I was there one is at Benfica and the other is at Braga. The standard of management and coaching was brilliant.

People always ask it about and in training we were only ever allowed to do two-touch football, that was it, it never changed. The big difference I saw between here and there was the goalkeepers. The goalkeepers trained with the players and did the goalkeeping at the end whereas in England they go away and only come in when you do a small sided game. We had three goalkeepers in the squad and when we played an 11 v 11 game the right footed keeper played right back or centre midfield if he wasn’t in goal and the left footed keeper did the same but at left back if he wasn’t in goal.

The manager wanted them to be comfortable on the ball. He wanted them to get on the ball and to play all the time. If you were to come in from an outside session, you couldn’t tell who the keeper was! The players could slot in any position.

I think Irish players need to open their horizons more. England isn’t the be all and end all. Every Irish person growing up always wants to play in England, it’s the same with English players, but it’s playing where’s right for them. Spanish players go all over the world, French players do Portuguese players do but English and Irish players just seem to stick in the same area.

Wes Hoolahan is a great footballer but he’s only getting a bit of credit now. If he was Spanish or Italian we’d be building a team around him but that’s not the way we play. Our most talented players happen to be overlooked. Going way back Liam Brady got overlooked because we wanted to play long ball. I think it’s disappointing that more Irish players don’t play further afield, the world is bigger than England and Ireland.

TS: Coming back to the Mariners, what are your personal ambitions this season with The Town?

PA: I want to play as many games as I can and score as many goals as possible. And contribute to successful season which ends in promotion.

TS: Do you think we can do it?

PA: Yeah, the squad of players I’m with now is the best squad I’ve been with in England talent wise. I’ve never played in the National League so a lot of this will be new to me but we have shown in pre-season. It’s the first time I ever gone a full pre-season unbeaten – 9 games. I know it’s only pre-season but we beat some good teams; Peterborough, Huddersfield, Notts County, Derby so I think we’re good enough but it’s up to the players, up to us to make sure.

Saturday was a little bit of a blip but maybe if was a good thing to happen as early in the season because pre-season went so smooth so it may be good to get a bit of a kick up the backside straight away. It might be the shock we needed to realise we can’t just turn up and win every game and we need to make sure we’re at it every match.

TS: What do you make of the town, the area and North East Lincolnshire?

PA: I’m enjoying myself, a lot of people were saying to me about Grimsby being one of the worst places to live in England and that Sacha Baren cohen film is coming out but it’s what you make of it yourself. If you come over with an open mind it’s fine. I’m enjoying myself so far. At the weekend I was at the Beachcomber for a comedy night with Lloyd Griffith who is a massive Town fan and he had Rob Beckett there with him.

The town itself is fine. I’ve never seen so many people walking around in Town shirts – there’s no Liverpool shirts, Man United shirts just Grimsby shirts. It’s a Football League club in all but name and it’s our job to get us back there.

TS: How’s the understanding coming along between your new strike partners Omar Bogle, Jon-Paul Pittman and Nathan Arnold?

PA: It’s been going really well. During pre-season me and JP were one partnership and Nathan and Omar was another and we have developed a very good partnership but unfortunately JP got injured. Playing with Omar is good too, you know he is going to score goals, he’s big, he’s strong and quick.

He has all the attributes to be a great player. The same with Nathan, he’s good in the air for his size, he’s nippy but playing with any of them makes no difference to me. We’ve all connected really well which is the most important thing and we’ve given the manager a few selection headaches and the only thing that probably helped him was JP struggling with a knock but when he comes back he’ll be a big player too. It’s up to us to do well in training.

TS: Lastly, when I was doing my research I noticed you do a column for The Nationalist newspaper back in Carlow, is journalism something you want to get into after your career in football? Have you been doing any kind of formal training in anything?

PA: I’ve done my coaching badges. The first couple and journalism is something – I’d love to get into radio. When I’m in the car I listen to talksport all the time and I can talk about any sport. I love watching sport and talking about it – my girlfriend hates me for it because I watch loads on TV as well. The Nationalist approached me a few years ago and I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s good to have something to do and if it helps me long term it would be something it’d be interested in. I’d rather learn it the hard way by watching how it’s being done rather than going to college and all that. When I was at school I wanted to be a PE teacher but with all the points and that in Ireland it’s hard and you could have the best PE teacher in the world who can’t get a job because they can’t get the points. I would like to get into coaching too but hopefully all that isn’t for a good few years yet!