The big man cometh

BEING pulled out of an Old Firm derby at the 11th hour might seem like a crushing disappointment for a player but when it happened to young Cillian Sheridan back in February the news was simply a source of undiluted joy.

That’s because the 18-year-old striker from Cavan was suddenly in line for a fast-track promotion to the Celtic first team for a Scottish Cup game against Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

“We were due to play Rangers the same day in a youth game but then I got the call-up to the senior team just the day before,” says the Irish U-19 international. “So it was a bit of shock but a brilliant one.”

Better still, Sheridan made a critical intervention in the match, after coming off the bench at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium to replace Mark Wilson with 16 minutes left. Cally were leading 1-0 at that point but an 89th minute goal from Steven Pressley levelled the tie. Then deep into injury time, Sheridan set up Kenny Miller to score the winner for the Hoops.

“It was only one touch,” he recalls, “just a striker’s instinct: lay it off to someone else if you can’t score. But it felt good.”

Sheridan is still clearly coming to terms with the implications of his speedy progress at Parkhead since moving to Glasgow last July, having previously cut his footballing teeth with Belvedere and his home town club of Bailieboro in County Cavan.

Celtic’s U19 coach Joe McBride has hailed the player’s rise as “spectacular” and praised his ability to score “all sorts of goals, from blistering shots from outside the box to tap-ins.”

At 6 foot 3, he is also, needless to say, a bit of a handful in the air.

Sheridan is shy and softly spoken — except, apparently, when it comes to expressing himself in song.

McBride recalls a youth team trip to Villareal last summer: “On one of the bus journeys we tried to get a sing-song going among the boys but no-one would get up. But once Cillian got up, there was no getting him down again. I hope he makes it as a footballer because he’ll never make it as a singer.”

It certainly looks like music’s loss will be football’s gain. Cillian played both gaelic and soccer growing up in Cavan but opted to concentrate on the latter once the offers of trials began to come in. After signing for Celtic — and already capped at U17 level for his country — another big turning point was his call-up to the Irish U19s for the narrow 1-0 defeat by France in a friendly in Paris last December.

“That was the first time that I’d been in a squad above me,” he says. “That helped a lot, it gave me confidence. Then I was brought full-time into the Celtic reserves after Christmas so I suppose it all pushed on from the France game. The physical side is something I have to keep working at. Being tall, I need to put muscle on so I’ve been working hard in the gym.”

At Celtic, he says he has benefited from training with the towering Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. “Big Jan is a similar type of player to me and he does it so well. So I try to pick up things from him. But going over to Glasgow the main thing that I really had to work on was my touch and technical ability. Gradually that got better. I’ve had to work hard on that and now I need to work hard on the physical side.”

Home on official business for the first time since joining Celtic, Sheridan is in Sean McCaffrey’s squad for the coming week’s crucial U19 Championship qualifying tournament, which will see Ireland play Bulgaria, Hungary and Germany for the right to participate in the finals in Austria in July.

The striker is confident that the boys in green will be up to the task.

“Every game has its different challenges,” he says. “We’ve been told what to expect from them all. I’m really looking forward to this week. If everyone plays to the level they can, we have the squad to do it. It’s up to us now to perform.”

Yesterday, manager McCaffrey confirmed that Steve Staunton will be in attendance for the first two games — against Bulgaria in Drogheda on Monday and Germany in Dalymount Park on Wednesday — before departing with his squad to the United States for the friendly games against Ecuador and Bolivia. That the senior manager has already shown he is willing to give youth a chance will not be lost on the U19 players. And, with his height and goal-scoring prowess, it’s no surprise that some observers are already speaking of Cillian Sheridan as a potential successor in the green shirt to the likes of Tony Cascarino and Niall Quinn.

But the Cavan lad is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

“Seeing all the younger fellas being given a chance inspires you to go into every game thinking that, with one good game, maybe you could get a chance,” he admits. “But all you can do is focus on the next game.”

Although there is plenty of competition for places in Sean McCaffrey’s starting 11 — with the likes of Sunderland’s Anthony Stokes and Stoke’s Adam Rooney among the striking options — United Park in Drogheda on Monday, when the Irish host Bulgaria at 7pm, should give Irish fans a welcome chance to see what all the fuss in Parkhead is about.