James McClean: Football is not a 'life of luxury'

The Albion winger, who revealed he’d like to end his career at home-town club Derry City, has become a firm fan favourite at The Hawthorns over the past two years thanks to his determination and passion on the pitch.

But he revealed that approach, which was sculpted on the streets of Derry and honed in the rough and tumble of the League of Ireland, is also partly down to the pressures of the Premier League.

In a candid interview with the podcast, ‘An Irishman abroad’, McClean also expressed concerns for the future of the game.

“Don’t get me wrong I still love playing football every day, I still feel privileged that I get to do it every day,” he said. “But when you’re younger that’s the best days of your life. There’s no pressure, expectations or worries, you’re just having fun playing football.

“People say being a footballer is a life of luxury. It’s far from a life of luxury. Yes, you have the luxury to buy things and do things other people can’t.

“But at the end of the day you’re still lonely, you’re still human, you still make sacrifices. You miss a lot of events. It’s a 24/7 job, it’s not just training two or three hours a day.

“You have to watch what you eat, look after your body, if you want to stay in shape you’ve got to go to bed at the right time.

“People say being a footballer is a life of luxury, trust me, it’s not. There’s still 22 hours in the day left to prepare for the next day and you have your game as well.

“There’s a lot of expectation and pressure on that as well, especially in the Premier League. The eyes of the world are on your every move. You have to be 100 per cent going into every game.”

McClean says street football helped him mature as a youngster, but he’s now worried that a generation of footballers is being lost to console games.

“I’ve got nephews who play FIFA on consoles rather than going out in the street,” he said. “You walk around the streets now and think where’s the balls? No-one’s playing football anymore.

“When I was growing up we were playing our nearest neighbours, every night you were out in the street, you had to be dragged in.

“Now you don’t see that, if you do see a boy outside you’re kind of shocked. Before it was the norm.”

McClean reckons chasing the ball around Derry helped him technically, if not tactically.

“Obviously you don’t understand about tactical side of game, but you do learn how to manoeuvre the ball,” he said. “You find your first touch because you have to when everyone is chasing after the ball.”

A strong-willed character who has stayed true to himself throughout his career, McClean receives boos at almost every away stadium in the country because of his unwillingness to wear a poppy.

But over time he has learned to use those negatives as motivation.

“I seem to get booed a lot every weekend,” he said. “I’m not deaf, of course I hear it. But there’s hearing it and there’s taking it on board. For me, that’s water off a duck’s back. It doesn’t affect me.

“It comes from experience. At the start I was thinking what’s this about? I know why they were booing me, the whole poppy issue, it wasn’t nice, but as you go on and play a lot of games you get used to it.

“The way I see it, I can either let it get me down or use it in the right way, use it as motivation. For me, it’s the latter.

“I want to be the best I can do. If I let them affect me it’s going to take away from my game. And then they win. Nobody likes being booed, let’s be honest. But if they’re going to, use it as your motivation.”

McClean has steadily improved since he turned down New York Red Bulls to join the Baggies in the summer of 2015 for £1.5million.

But now he’s in his late 20s, he’s starting to think more and more about the end of his career.

A proud Derryman, he’s eager to go back to where it all started.

“I’ve always had a picture for the start and end of my career,” he said. “In between I don’t know what’s going to happen. I started at Derry, and I want to finish at Derry.

“I don’t know when I’ll go back, but I want to go back when I’m able to give something, so it’s not for show and I can hardly move, with youngsters running by me. That’s not how I want to go back.

“I want to go back when I’ve still got a year or two left to give something. I’m a home boy, it’d be ideal to play my last season at Derry.”