Penalty miss in U-10 soccer game changed Bryan Sheehan’s life

John Sheehan can still picture the scene. A few hours after missing a penalty in an underage match, his son Bryan spent the afternoon practicing spot-kicks in the garden of their Cahirciveen home oblivious to the sheets of rain.

“I knew he had the bug when after missing a penalty playing an U10 soccer game he came home and went out in the back-garden practising,” recalled John at Radio Kerry’s All-Ireland final preview night in the Legends Lounge at the Sea Lodge Hotel. “I came home late and the mother said, ‘Get him in out of there. He is all wet, it is cold and he won’t come in’.

“I went out to him and I told him to come in. ‘No’, he said. ‘I have got to get this right’. And he kept at it and at it. If you hadn’t got the bug, you wouldn’t stay it.