Kevin Feely was lucky he got a shot at both.
The Kildare man was at Charlton for a few years trying to break through their underage ranks before he eventually moved home – still with enough time to make it to the top with a different size five.
Not everyone has that luxury and most of them sure as hell aren’t good enough to cut it somewhere else.
Playing county is so many young kids’ dreams in Ireland but so too is playing professional soccer in England. We grow up watching both, we harbour dreams of making it in both but what if you had the choice? Would you stick to the GAA or take your chances with the cruel odds of life across the Irish Sea?
Kildare native Kevin Feely had the choice of joining Charlton or Peterborough before he made the trip over with ambitions of making it to Wembley instead of Croke Park. He moved to London as a teenager, his first move away from Kildare and it was a tough battle physically, technically, and mentally.
He chose the Addicks mostly because the Posh didn’t have an underage setup like they had at The Valley.
“I kind of thought Charlton is a better setup, a more professional club and see how I go,” Feely told SportsJOE’s GAA Hour.
“In hindsight, I just got stuck in the reserve league whereas if I had gone to Peterborough, it would’ve been straight into first team football. They are things you don’t really realise at the time.
“The first team manager at Charlton was never really having me. The under-21 manager is the reason I was signed – he persuaded Chartlon to sign me and then he left after my first year and, after that, I didn’t have a huge amount of coaches on my side.
“Even at the start of my second season, I asked for a meeting with Chris Powell, the first team manager, just to see where I was because I thought I was after having a good first season with the under-21s. When I asked him if I was in his plans for the first team, he was kind of saying, ‘no’.
“He just basically laid it out on the line and said if I can get out on loan then do it.”
What’s worse is that this was all happening when the Lilywhites’ under-21 team back home were going well too.
“It was definitely tough seeing the lads do so well and I was missing out,” Feely admitted.
“There was a good bit of homesickness at Charlton anyway.
“I didn’t hugely enjoy London. I made some good friends but it was more the soccer side of things that I wasn’t enjoying.
“There’s a huge luck aspect [to making it] as well, the timing and things like that.”
When an Irish kid gets a break to go mix it across the water, it’s a good thing and an exciting thing. But it is not without its risks and perils.
