THERE WAS A nice moment after Aidan Keena had scored his fourth and fifth goals of the season for St Patrick’s Athletic on Monday night.
A couple of young fans hung around for 40 minutes or so after full-time. They evaded the stewards who were trying to usher the remaining stragglers towards Emmet Road as they sought to intercept the striker walking towards the directors’ box to do post-match interviews.
He posed for selfies and took the acclaim as the newly heralded Greatest Of All Time. “You’re the GOAT, Keena. You’re the GOAT, bro.”
“I think it’s the beard,” he said.
Keena is a confident and positive personality, an up-and-at-’em type of character. It was these traits, not to mention back catalogue of goals, that formed part of the reason Pat’s were keen to bring him to the club last July. Still, he was quick with that line of deprecating humour.
Those kids were still cheering his name as they eventually scurried away, and Keena admitted that that the hot streak he finds himself on – scoring in three of his side’s first four games and five times in total – is one he will enjoy.
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“You need to as much as you can. It could go the other way again tomorrow, know what I mean?”
He certainly does.
Go back to September 2023 and Keena is having a different experience with supporters of the team he plays for. He is a substitute for Cheltenham Town in a League One game away to Exeter City.
Keena is also the club’s record signing after being poached from Sligo Rovers at the start of 2023 for a fee in excess of €60,000 (£50,000). But the move is a disaster and Keena finds himself out of a team that plays long ball and percentages. He is warming up in front of a corner of 100 or so away fans and looks bereft. Former Premier League defender Curtis Davies is alongside him during the dwindling days of an impressive career. They can hear the abuse.
Cheltenham lose 1-0, a sixth defeat in seven games. Cheltenham, let alone Keena, are still without a goal. He is a second-half sub and will require treatment on the creak in his neck after watching ball after ball played long and high.
One middle aged man holds a baby girl, two-years-old at a push, and is effing and blinding at Keena and his teammates as they approach to show appreciation for their support. A woman races over to the man, takes the child, and then ushers him down the steps so he can get closer to the advertising boards to really vent.
Keena applauds briefly before walking down the tunnel. It was not meant to be like this when he left Sligo in January 2023. Already he can sense the writing on the wall for his time in England.
Another anonymous figure in the Cheltenham side that afternoon was Ellis Chapman. His story is different to Keena’s in that he was a highly-rated youth prospect at hometown club Lincoln City before Leicester City paid a significant sum to bring him to their ranks as a teenager.
He developed a reputation as a smashing footballer with the ideal traits – left-footed, athletic and over 6ft – to succeed. Except he was becoming viewed through a different prism in English football, a midfielder not quite capable of affecting senior games with their talent and who might have peaked in underage ranks.
At Cheltenham he was slowly broken, that vulnerability and loss of confidence becoming clear when Sligo boss John Russell went to meet him to discuss a loan move a couple of weeks after that Exeter game.
There were options in the Nations League – where wages are also significant in the arms race to become established in the English Football League (EFL). In League 2, for example, one club currently fighting relegation were able to lure a couple of players from these shores with weekly wages closer to €4,000 a week.
The League of Ireland was not high on Chapman’s priority list. But the chance to rediscover form in a less cutthroat environment appealed, so too the chance to work under an impressive coach with the canny knack of helping revitalise careers through direction and support both on and off the pitch.
Keena was another beneficiary of this and spoke positively of the League of Ireland’s benefits to Chapman, as did Reece Hutchinson who was already at the Bit O’Red after leaving Cheltenham in February 2023.
Keena’s return to St Pat’s, where the Mullingar native came through the academy before being sold to Hearts, came on the back of Ruairi Keating’s request to leave for Cork City last summer.
He and his wife – who is from the UK – had just had their second child and priorities were somewhat different to Chapman. Keena also had a shoulder problem but was viewed as an important signing by Stephen Kenny, and now he and Chapman find themselves on rival sides in a League of Ireland title challenge.
Chapman’s form at Sligo led Damien Duff to bring him to Tolka Park. He is now in a different kind of battle to establish himself in the starting XI and is in a far better place mentally and physically to do so.
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Such are the extreme highs and lows that footballers face. For all of the potential glory and satisfaction of doing something you love, there aren’t many other professions where your stock can fluctuate so dramatically; where your performance is evaluated in real time and with such ferocity by those who come out to support you.
Imagine Elon Musk and thousands more chanting “You’re s***, and you know you are” during efficiency assessments.
Chapman and Keena are both in their mid 20s and have experienced the vagaries together in England, and now on opposite sides in Ireland. This season is just another challenge to overcome. Maybe even enjoy.
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'You're the GOAT, bro' - Stark highs and lows of football at play for Keena and Chapman
THERE WAS A nice moment after Aidan Keena had scored his fourth and fifth goals of the season for St Patrick’s Athletic on Monday night.
A couple of young fans hung around for 40 minutes or so after full-time. They evaded the stewards who were trying to usher the remaining stragglers towards Emmet Road as they sought to intercept the striker walking towards the directors’ box to do post-match interviews.
He posed for selfies and took the acclaim as the newly heralded Greatest Of All Time. “You’re the GOAT, Keena. You’re the GOAT, bro.”
“I think it’s the beard,” he said.
Keena is a confident and positive personality, an up-and-at-’em type of character. It was these traits, not to mention back catalogue of goals, that formed part of the reason Pat’s were keen to bring him to the club last July. Still, he was quick with that line of deprecating humour.
Those kids were still cheering his name as they eventually scurried away, and Keena admitted that that the hot streak he finds himself on – scoring in three of his side’s first four games and five times in total – is one he will enjoy.
“You need to as much as you can. It could go the other way again tomorrow, know what I mean?”
He certainly does.
Go back to September 2023 and Keena is having a different experience with supporters of the team he plays for. He is a substitute for Cheltenham Town in a League One game away to Exeter City.
Keena is also the club’s record signing after being poached from Sligo Rovers at the start of 2023 for a fee in excess of €60,000 (£50,000). But the move is a disaster and Keena finds himself out of a team that plays long ball and percentages. He is warming up in front of a corner of 100 or so away fans and looks bereft. Former Premier League defender Curtis Davies is alongside him during the dwindling days of an impressive career. They can hear the abuse.
Cheltenham lose 1-0, a sixth defeat in seven games. Cheltenham, let alone Keena, are still without a goal. He is a second-half sub and will require treatment on the creak in his neck after watching ball after ball played long and high.
One middle aged man holds a baby girl, two-years-old at a push, and is effing and blinding at Keena and his teammates as they approach to show appreciation for their support. A woman races over to the man, takes the child, and then ushers him down the steps so he can get closer to the advertising boards to really vent.
Keena applauds briefly before walking down the tunnel. It was not meant to be like this when he left Sligo in January 2023. Already he can sense the writing on the wall for his time in England.
Another anonymous figure in the Cheltenham side that afternoon was Ellis Chapman. His story is different to Keena’s in that he was a highly-rated youth prospect at hometown club Lincoln City before Leicester City paid a significant sum to bring him to their ranks as a teenager.
He developed a reputation as a smashing footballer with the ideal traits – left-footed, athletic and over 6ft – to succeed. Except he was becoming viewed through a different prism in English football, a midfielder not quite capable of affecting senior games with their talent and who might have peaked in underage ranks.
At Cheltenham he was slowly broken, that vulnerability and loss of confidence becoming clear when Sligo boss John Russell went to meet him to discuss a loan move a couple of weeks after that Exeter game.
There were options in the Nations League – where wages are also significant in the arms race to become established in the English Football League (EFL). In League 2, for example, one club currently fighting relegation were able to lure a couple of players from these shores with weekly wages closer to €4,000 a week.
The League of Ireland was not high on Chapman’s priority list. But the chance to rediscover form in a less cutthroat environment appealed, so too the chance to work under an impressive coach with the canny knack of helping revitalise careers through direction and support both on and off the pitch.
Keena was another beneficiary of this and spoke positively of the League of Ireland’s benefits to Chapman, as did Reece Hutchinson who was already at the Bit O’Red after leaving Cheltenham in February 2023.
Keena’s return to St Pat’s, where the Mullingar native came through the academy before being sold to Hearts, came on the back of Ruairi Keating’s request to leave for Cork City last summer.
He and his wife – who is from the UK – had just had their second child and priorities were somewhat different to Chapman. Keena also had a shoulder problem but was viewed as an important signing by Stephen Kenny, and now he and Chapman find themselves on rival sides in a League of Ireland title challenge.
Chapman’s form at Sligo led Damien Duff to bring him to Tolka Park. He is now in a different kind of battle to establish himself in the starting XI and is in a far better place mentally and physically to do so.
Such are the extreme highs and lows that footballers face. For all of the potential glory and satisfaction of doing something you love, there aren’t many other professions where your stock can fluctuate so dramatically; where your performance is evaluated in real time and with such ferocity by those who come out to support you.
Imagine Elon Musk and thousands more chanting “You’re s***, and you know you are” during efficiency assessments.
Chapman and Keena are both in their mid 20s and have experienced the vagaries together in England, and now on opposite sides in Ireland. This season is just another challenge to overcome. Maybe even enjoy.
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League of Ireland Soccer THE BEAT