Fahey ready to take shot at last

KEITH FAHEY is way too accomplished a media operator to say he was frustrated by the absence of an international call-up but Stephen Carr had no reason to hold back when the nod finally arrived late last month.

“Stephen just said it was long overdue,” said the Birmingham City midfielder at the launch of Betpack.com in Dublin.

“He said ‘it was about time you got your chance’. He said a while ago that I should be getting a look in so it was good to get that boost from him.”

Fahey and Carr have both been central to City’s memorable season under Alex McLeish, one in which they achieved their best finish in England’s top flight since 1959. Between them, the Irishmen appeared 69 times in the league alone.

“It’s been brilliant. The season couldn’t have gone any better. At the start we were talking about just staying up. To finish ninth – we wouldn’t have thought that. Especially after pre-season last year. We weren’t really good. So it was great to finish in the top 10.”

Fahey’s meteoric rise from League of Ireland through to the Premier League has been a remarkable tale, one made all the more fascinating for the fact that he is finally succeeding at such a high level 12 years after first crossing the Irish Sea.

A trainee at Arsenal at 15, he was head-hunted by Aston Villa but failed to settle and moved back to Ireland where a spell with non-league Bluebell United was followed by two stints at St Patrick’s Athletic and a short stay at Drogheda United.

A more mature Fahey returned to Britain in January of last year and hasn’t looked back since but he has no regrets about the interlude between leaving Villa Park and pitching up at St Andrews almost seven years later.

“Absolutely no regrets as I got to come home for a few years and spend it with my Da and got to see a good bit of my Da before he passed on. The way it’s happened has happened for a reason and I firmly believe that.

“I enjoyed my time at Pats and got back enjoying my football. I got my head back in a right place with football and was in good spirits going back and I honestly believed that happened for a reason.”

He is one of eight men called up to an Irish squad for the first time and his first taste of life under Giovanni Trapattoni will come this Sunday when a 23-player development squad gathers for training prior to games against Paraguay and Algeria.

The failure to bring him into the fold before now has been remarked upon time and again in the last 18 months and that may have been down to the fact that Fahey, on the face of it, doesn’t appear to be an archetypal ‘Trapattoni player’. A central midfielder during his time in Ireland, he has been used across the middle of the park by McLeish – if mostly on the left – but he doesn’t go along with the view that he may be too attack-minded for the Italian.

“I do a fair bit of defensive work for Birmingham. I look at the ProZone stats and I do an awful lot of defensive work. I’m sure I can though. I can fill a number of roles across midfield and I’m just looking forward to training.”