Stephen Ireland on how he's taken Rob Heffernan's son under his wing

Aside from a weekly five-a-side with friends such as Darren Fletcher, Emile Heskey and Nedum Onuoha, Stephen Ireland admits his playing days are finally behind him.

“I probably knew for a couple of years that I wasn’t going to get back to the level I should be at, but it’s only the last five or six months that I’ve started to sleep easy with it. He has about 20 players now; all teenagers, all starry-eyed, desperate for a boost over the barbed wire fence that separates academies and the Promised Land of first-team football.‘It’ll be forward-looking. No ‘granny-gate’ stuff.’So I send a text to Ireland, introducing myself, asking if he has time for a chat.Within seconds he replies. “Why what’s wrong with my past?”Then another message.The idea came while he nursed a broken leg, which kept him out of the Stoke side for over a year.

“I have friends who are trainers to Anthony Joshua; who are trainers to Ronaldo and Rashford. They are all outsourced. “I used to stay out training after everyone else left, but someone would come over to me and say, ‘Get off the pitch, you’re doing too much, go home’. “The ex-pros are all blown away by it because they think, I’ve been burnt by this agent or I was with him and he did nothing for me.“All the ex-pros say, if you need to lean on me for a session, I’ll take the boy.“I’ve had lads come along and do shooting sessions, and talk to the boys about what it was like scoring for England.“If you have a 15- or 16-year-old surrounded with this level of player, hopefully they will pick up bits and pieces off them.

“He really wants a career in the game, which makes everything easier for me. And with a family like his, it makes everything easier. “He’s the size of Ronaldo and the fastest thing I’ve ever seen. He has all the right attributes. He just needed a bit of guidance on the football side of things. “He’s a home-bird, a really good kid. I think he is suited to Ireland and Ireland are suited to him. I’d love to see him play for Ireland.”

“He went over to Italy to train with Cagliari and he had to go on his own, isolate for two weeks in a hotel room, train with them for a week and come back.

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