James McClean isn’t one to back down, but he has little to gain in row with hometown club
For the moment at least, Derry City are adopting a fairly sanguine approach to the latest chapter in the James McClean saga. Their statement late on Tuesday afternoon was measured, although the pointed reference to McClean’s intervention coming “four days before the biggest match of the Club’s season” left no doubt as to how annoyed they are by the timing. Saturday’s FAI Cup semi-final against Galway United represents far bigger fish to fry. Equally, though, they surely can’t imagine it will all just die down eventually. McClean isn’t in the habit of stepping back from conflict, particularly when he feels sinned against. In any public spat, it can be difficult sometimes to discern things like timelines and facts and truths. But the one thing you can take as read with McClean is that he’ll fight until there’s no more fighting to be done. In all truth, the particulars of this row with his boyhood club are relatively humdrum and probably not all that interesting to many people beyond the parties involved. McClean isn’t the first pro footballer to get into a barney with his club as his career winds down and he won’t be the last. It feels unlikely that any other player in the League of Ireland would hoover up such attention in similar circumstances. Essentially, this feels like a collective failure of foresight, with plenty of blame to go around. If Derry had buyer’s remorse in the months after bringing McClean home, the onus was on them to find a way to make a clean break. They had to know that unless they were comma perfect in the process of moving him on, they would get drawn into a legal conkers match with someone who has no problem hoarding chestnuts. Did Derry really think McClean was just going to shrug and say, “Fair enough lads, no hard feelings”? If they did, they were sorely mistaken – and found out as much back in August when they ended up having to withdraw their attempt to end his contract. The fact that they signed McClean without conducting a medical, as claimed in the PFAI statement, does not speak well of the club’s ability to see around corners. As for McClean, the very fact that he went as far as apologising for going public with his criticisms of the club back in the summer is telling in and of itself. “I accept that some of my actions over the past few months were misjudged, and my frustrations should have remained in-house,” he said. “I take responsibility for that – and I apologise.” It’s one thing being a truth-teller and holding the club higher-ups to account. As a seasoned professional, with experience of every level of the game, McClean could reasonably have assumed that was expected of him, part of the package Derry were signing up to when they got him. But whatever his grievances, it was neither wise nor helpful to be going on RTÉ during the World Cup and bad-mouthing the set-up at his new club. And certainly not when, by his own admission, he is only intermittently fit enough to actually play. People aren’t generally inclined to listen to you pronounce from your high horse when they think you have to be helped up into the saddle. McClean’s endless lust for battle has, on balance, been an admirable thread running through his career. People forget that he looked for a long time like he wouldn’t make it out of Derry in the first place. He was 22 by the time Sunderland brought him to England, in an era when most talented players in Irish football were going over in their mid-teens. He forced his way into the Republic of Ireland squad for Euro 2012, only to find himself having to apologise to Giovanni Trapattoni for complaining about playing time in an ill-advised tweet a couple of months later. Whatever future anyone had in mind for him then, not many were predicting he would end up with 103 Ireland caps, behind only four men in history. Of course, he has got into interminable scrapes along the way, which would have long since worn on most people’s patience if it wasn’t for the fact he sometimes had right on his side. Taking on the broad swathe of English football in the poppy wars of the mid-2010s must go down as one of the most admirable stances ever taken by a pro footballer, especially considering the endless abuse he took for it. Most public figures would have quailed in the face of the hate he engendered; McClean ran face-first into it. The poppy fight bought him plenty of store credit when it came to his other misdemeanours. Putting on a balaclava during Covid while apparently giving his kids a “history lesson”, and posting a picture of it, was idiotic. His habitual inclination to pour online petrol onto any available fire has done him no favours either. By now, most people have a rounded enough view of James McClean – a full-hearted footballer, commendably solid in his convictions, probably a bit of a pain in the arse at the same time. Ultimately, he is within his rights to take the fight to Derry City if he feels he has standing. Just as they are within their rights to fight back. But the feeling persists that he might have misjudged this one. Derry were there long before him and they’ll be around long after him. Even if he scraps his way to a legal victory – whatever that might look like – what will he really have won? He’ll be a wealthy footballer who finished his career going to war with his hometown club. For someone who made such a brilliant career out of humble beginnings, that’s no sort of legacy to leave.