NO SOONER HAD the news broken yesterday morning of Aaron McEneff’s impending move to Perth Glory than his phone pinged with a WhatsApp message.
Of course it was someone else from Derry already living in Australia who was straight on offering help to him and his young family once they make the move in the next few weeks.
The late Ryan McBride was captain of the Candystripes when McEneff returned to his hometown club to rebuild his career following his release by Tottenham Hotspur in 2015.
And it was a cousin of McBride, whom McEneff had stayed in touch with on and off following his move to Shamrock Rovers in 2018 and subsequent transfer to Hearts early last year, that reached out.
“It’s good to have people like that who you know are there and willing to help us,” McEneff tells The42.
“The club have already explained the support they will give but to have people outside of football and that Irish community there, it will be a big thing for us as a family.
“It’s the other side of the world, but the world is a small place these days. I have cousins on my mother’s side who already live in Perth too and there are a few other people from Derry that are out there too.”
And yet it was a Dubliner who helped settle any nerves he may have had about uprooting his young family – McEneff and his partner Ellen have a daughter, Pixie, who was born in Edinburgh shortly after joining Hearts.
Former Ireland international Andy Keogh has just retired from playing after three stints with Glory from 2014, when he first headed Down Under.
The 36-year-old now works as the club’s head of recruitment and, after getting character references from Joey O’Brien and Damien Duff (the former was a teammate while the latter was a first-team coach at Tallaght Stadium) it helped get the wheels in motion for the transfer.
Head coach Ruben Zadkovich spoke to McEneff again yesterday about his plans and the pair have also clicked during their brief dealings.
He wants to win and so do I. He wants to create that kind of environment again. And from speaking to Andy about how he found moving over, adjusting to the lifestyle and what’s it like to play and live here, it helped because he’s someone I can relate to.
“He has set up a new life and giving it a good go,” he says, with the A-League season starting in October.
“Hearing about his experiences, helping me to get prepared in my own head, it makes it a lot easier to make up your mind.”
And what this move represents is a different way of life for them all to experience, with a sense from McEneff that it has allowed him to shape his own future by deciding to leave Hearts at a time when they are on the rise.
Despite having another year left on his contract and the option for additional campaign, McEneff did not want to remain a bit-part player in a side that finished third last season and, having won the Scottish Cup, will be guaranteed group stage football in European competition.
They go straight into the Europa League play-off round and even if they lose they will head for the Europa Conference League – with a £3 million windfall regardless of which tier they end up in.
“I wanted to be proactive in my own career and take control of what I wanted to do,” he explains. “Having some control of what you want to do in your life is important.
“There is no animosity with anybody at Hearts, this is just something that happens in football. It’s a move that suits everyone, really.
The fans and players are right to be excited by what is happening at the club but my mentality is that things are only good if you are right in the mix as a player and involved every week playing.
“If you are on the periphery that changes everything. Some people go through their careers and it suits some people to be like that. It doesn’t suit me. I want to make an impact. I want to play and be a real part of a team that wins.
“I made a decent impact over the last year at Hearts but not as much as I would have liked. I feel like I could have offered more but that’s football.”
It was only in November 2020 that McEneff was on the bench for Ireland’s Nations League game with Bulgaria in Dublin. International ambitions remain, and the belief is that playing consistently can only improve his chances – even if he’s 15,000 kilometres away.
“If you are performing to a high level Stephen [Kenny] is the kind of manager who will be watching and know how you are doing. If that call ever did come again I would be straight on the plane.”