Echo Sport Replay: Osam recalls glorious days marching with the Saints

“I tried to locate them there about five or six years ago. I probably got a bit nostalgic and I got up into the attic and had a root around.

“I’ve lots of memorabilia in the attic and I found lots of things and I don’t remember winning half of these things.

“But I think I could find only about two of my league medals and people might find that strange, but it’s not, because for me, the medals are only material.

“It’s the fact that you achieved that, it was the fact that you were on a team that achieved that honour of being champions of your country. That’s what’s important” he insisted.

An imposing presence at central midfield, Osam called time on his playing days in 2004 having bagged five League medals, which would have been officially six had not an administrative error cost St Pat’s the title in 2002.

Add to that the two League Cup medals as well the unprecedented clean sweep of personal accolades he chalked up in 1999 with the SWAI, PFAI and FAI Player of the Year honours, and it is little wonder then that some of the greats of Irish soccer like Paul McGrath and Mick Leech lined out in his 2002 testimonial.

Paul Osam introduces his then four-year-old son Evan to former Republic of Ireland International Paul McGrath in the dressing room ahead of the start to his testimonial match between St Patrick’s Athletic and Shamrock Rovers at Richmond Park back in 2002

Football has been and remains a huge part of Osam’s life as current Head Coach of the Republic of Ireland Under 16 squad, yet the Dubliner’s story also has a more sobering side that stems from a terrifying heart attack he suffered in early 2013 at the age of 45 and which would have cost him his life had it not been for the swift intervention of doctors and nurses in Tallaght Hospital.

While time has brought with it a good measure of physical healing from that ordeal, some of the psychological scars remain and Osam is constantly at pains to stress the importance of middle-aged men and women staying healthy and keeping abreast of their cardiological state.

“It was traumatic at the time, a life-changing experience for anybody, particular for someone who felt like they were fit and healthy at 45” said Osam.

“There were no warning signs. It was a genetic thing where my body was just producing bad cholesterol and it was basically sticking to my arteries and blocked up the main artery.

“I was extremely lucky. I was on death’s door and all I have to show for it is a tiny little nick on my wrist. It’s amazing what they do to put a stent in.

“I’ve had fantastic after care, currently ongoing in Tallaght Hospital as an out-patient, but I’m eight years on now and I’m on a couple of tablets every day like probably half the population, so I’m lucky.

Paul Osam raises the 2003 League Cup for St Patrick’s Athletic, one of the many titles he won with the Inchicore side during his 16-year-long League of Ireland career

“The incident I had is quite common in the mid-40s so anybody, no matter how fit and healthy they feel they are, should get their bloods and cholesterol checked regularly, because you could be a ticking time bomb.

“Blood pressure and cholesterol are the two things. Know them numbers.

“I’m in good health now, I feel great, I walk regularly, do moderate exercise.

“But I’ll be honest, the psychological scars are the worst. Physical scars go, I don’t have any physical scars really, but the psychological scars can be very challenging at times especially if I get any type of twinge in my chest or feel any type of heartburn coming on.

“Now the further away from the event you go, the easier it becomes. You learn to cope.

“And I always carry this with me- time heals everything, you will feel better with time. But the unfortunate thing about that is, time takes time. You can’t rush time.

“I had a lucky escape, but I’m fine now. I’m eating well, I’m exercising and I feel great” he said.

Growing up on a Council estate in Holylands, Rathfarnham, Osam ignited his footballing career with Leicester Celtic before short spells with Stella Maris and St Joseph’s Boys.

He played with a strong team in Ballinteer Community School, many of whom also lined out with Broadford Rovers, himself included.

There was no shortage of club success at Under 18 and 19 level with Broadford, but it was during his days with Mount Merrion that he came to the attention of then St Patrick’s Athletic assistant manager Billy Bagster.

“We were playing a team called St Brendan’s and they were top of the league” recalled Osam.

“It was a midweek game during the summer. I was working that day and I finished work early and went up to Mount Merrion in Deerpark.

“Normally I would have played in midfield, but the manager played me at the back, at centre half, because I’d been in work all day and I was a bit tired.

“I know St Brendan’s had two strikers who a lot of League of Ireland clubs were sniffing around at that time. They were prolific.

“But I played centre half and I had the two boys in my pocket with the other centre back and I think I scored from two direct free kicks. I had a really good game and we won 3-1.

“We went to the pub after the match and a fella called Maurice Lyons, the chairman of Mount Merrion and a brother of the late great Johnny Lyons, came over to me and he said ‘there’s a man here who wants to talk to you. His name is Billy Bagster and he’s from St Pat’s.’

“Billy had come up to watch the two lads off St Brendan’s and came over to me and said ‘I watched the game tonight and I thought you were really outstanding and you could play at a much higher level.’

“And I said ‘No I’m not interested. I just like playing with my mates.’ I was probably in my comfort zone and I just didn’t want to be pushing myself.

“But, between the jigs and the reels, he got Brian Kerr to ring me and I spoke to Brian. I still wasn’t really too interested.

“So he got Robbie Gaffney to ring me. Robbie’s from Dundrum and would have lived in my locality. Robbie would have played for Rovers previously and was well known around the area.

“And he said ‘Would you not come down? I can pick you up and give you a lift for training over in Walkinstown. Come down and have a look. You have nothing to lose.’

“So I said I’d go and that’s how I ended up going to St Pat’s around 1988.

“I had a year in the reserves there and I was training with the first team.

“Then I got my opportunity in the 1989/’90 season. I was in the first team squad and we went down to Limerick for the first game of the season.

“I’m on the bench, but very early in the game, Robbie Gaffney, who had been so instrumental in me going down in the first place, he broke his leg and I went on for him in midfield.

“That season I scored a crucial goal against Derry. Derry had won the treble the previous year and were really in their pomp.

“They had the likes of Felix Healy, Liam Coyle, Paul Curran, they had a really good side and they were dominating the League of Ireland at the time.

“But I remember we went up there to the Brandywell when we were probably two thirds of the way through the season.

“I know if they had won that game it was curtains for us more or less and I was fortunate enough to score and we won the game 1-0

“I’ll never forget the goal because that was the biggest moment of my career at that stage.

“To score the winner in the Brandywell against Derry at that time was the stuff of dreams for me.

“Now that didn’t win us the league, but it was a massive turning point in the season and it spurred us on to win the league that year.

“It was the first time in a long time [since 1956] that Pat’s had won the league and it was huge.

“But between 1990 and ’93 a lot of players left. The club was in financial difficulty and we were struggling a little bit.

“After we won the league a lot of the players were well sought after, myself included, but I stayed. I felt a bit of loyalty to the club. They had given me the break.

“But around ’93 I just felt I needed to move because my career was stalling and Pat’s weren’t being successful and the future didn’t look too bright.

“Shamrock Rovers had been on to me nearly every year up till then anyway so I decided to take the leap and I went and signed for Rovers under the late Ray Treacy.

“It was fantastic. I remember we played 18 games up until the middle of January and we were a fair bit clear in the league.

“We had a very good side with players like Stephen Geoghegan, Peter Eccles, Alan Byrne, John Toal, Derek McGrath.

“Unfortunately for me, I tore my cruciate ligament down in the RDS in January of ’94 and that ruled me out for the rest of that season.

“But we were miles clear by that stage and we won the league that season.

“The following season I had some disagreements with Rovers about contracts and stuff and I ended up going up to Derry City. I never signed with Derry, but I did a lot of my rehab up there and the manager there, Tony Doherty, wanted to sign me.

“Derry City wanted to take me on loan. They wouldn’t sign me until they had seen me play which is understandable, because of the cruciate.

“I was still officially a Shamrock Rovers player so they said ‘we need to get him on loan’, but Rovers wouldn’t let me go on loan.

“They said if Derry wanted me to play for them I’d have to sign and Derry wouldn’t sign me because I hadn’t played.

“So I was caught between a rock and a hard place, but luckily enough Brian Kerr was aware of my situation and he invited me back to St Pat’s for the 1995/’96 pre-season.

“So I went down and did pre-season. My knee was ok, I got away with it. I worked hard and got stronger and Brian gave me a contract.

“We won the league that year in my first year back. I played a good few games that season.

“We went on and won the title again in 1997/’98 under Pat Dolan and 1998/’99 with Liam Buckley, three out of four years. We enjoyed great success.

“I remember the year we won it when Liam Buckley was manager. We played Cork City in I think in the second last game of the season and why it stands out for me was because it was such an important game.

“We played them down in Inchicore. I don’t think we could afford to lose it and I scored the winner and we won 1-0.

“I think that put us two points ahead of them going into the last game. We only needed a draw at home against Bray.

“I was actually injured for that game, but we got the result we needed and we won the league.

“But that game against Cork, it was massive and there were parallels with that and the Derry game eight or nine years previous.

“That season [1998/’99] I was the first player to win all three of the personal awards in the one year, the Soccer Writers [SWAI] Award, the PFAI and the FAI Player of the Year Awards.

“It was a great season and a great year for me personally. I was 32 and a lot of players don’t even play up to that age, so to win every award possible at that age, it was fantastic.

“I think around that time in my life I looked at myself and I thought if I’d applied myself earlier the way I had applied myself later, I probably would have had a much better career.

“I probably peaked later on in my career and unfortunately then, the body is starting to slow down in relation to professional football.

“So I probably didn’t have the best years where I was as fit as I could be and as mature as I could be as an individual and a footballer, but still, I can’t complain.

“In 2001/’02 we won the league by a good few points, but we were deducted points because of some issues with ineligible players.

“People often say to me, ‘How many league medals have you got?’ My answer would be ‘five or six. I’m not too sure because we actually got medals that year even though we didn’t win the league.’ Pat Dolan fought tooth and nail to get us medals.

“To me, I won the league six times. I don’t have six league medals, I probably don’t f**king have any because I don’t know where they are, but I played on the team that was the best team on the pitch for six seasons.

“Although the record books might show 2001/2002 Shelbourne won the league, in my mind and in my view, we won the league, because we were the best team and we accumulated the most number of points on the pitch.

“We were punished for a clerical error which, being honest, means nothing at all to me. So I would always look upon that year as the year we won the league.

“We won the League Cup a couple of times [2001 and 2003] but I was gutted not to win the FAI Cup.

“We got to two finals. We played Shels in the final in 1996 and we played Longford in the final in 2003.

“The Shelbourne final was the one that got away. Shelbourne had their keeper sent off early on and I thought ‘Here we go now’.

“Davy Campbell scored before halftime so we were 1-0 up and they were down to ten men. We just had to control the game.

“Pat’s hadn’t won the cup since 1961 and I was feeling like this was it, but I think with about 10 or 15 minutes to go, out of nowhere, the ball just bounced up and Tony Sheridan, an absolute genius of a player for Shelbourne, he unleashed a volley from about 35-40 yards out, and the ball just flew into the top corner.

“That ended up 1-1 and went to a replay and in the replay we missed a penalty and they went down the other end of the pitch and scored. They won 2-1 so that was the one that got away.

“We played Longford later on in another final [in 2003] and they beat us 2-0. We just didn’t perform on the day.

“But look, cups don’t mean as much to me as the league. On any given day you can win a game, but you have to be the best team to win the league.

“We played in the Intertoto Cup and I scored a few times in that. We got through a couple of rounds, nothing major, but it was a great experience to play in Europe, test yourself against that quality of opposition.

“But I was coming towards the end of my career and it was tough for me, in my early 30s, to play at that level and at that pace.

“We did have a great game against Celtic where we got a 0-0 draw at Parkhead in the Champions League qualifier back in 1998.

“We played in front of 60 odd thousand supporters, so that was a massive occasion and they were great memories to play in front of that many people.

“I was given a testimonial in 2002 and Paul McGrath played in that. We played against Shamrock Rovers and Mick Leech, a legend at their club, also played in that. It was just great.

“I got another couple of seasons before I retired in 2004. The signs were there, the body was creaking, the body fat started to go up, you’d be sore after training sessions, feeling it after games.

“The body told you it was time to say goodbye and so I finished up playing then in 2004.

“I stayed on with the St Pat’s Under 21 team for a couple of seasons, initially as assistant and then I became Head Coach.

“It went well and I really enjoyed it, but maybe I felt I couldn’t further my career there in a management capacity so I left and went to work at Bray with Eddie Gormley as one of the coaches.

“I had a few years there with Eddie and Keith Long. We had all played together at Pat’s.

“I had a couple of years there and I moved on and got a job with the FAI, I think about 10 years ago now.

“I worked as a development officer in Westmeath for about seven years and when I got the job as Under 16 International Head Coach in 2016, I was still working as a development officer.

“In 2018 I got a job as a National Coach Education tutor, but once everything gets back to normal I’ll just be fulltime international manager with the Under 16s.

“When I was playing, I wouldn’t have thought I’d go on to be a manager or a coach, but the game is infectious and when you stop playing you just want to be involved and I felt I had a lot to offer.

“I had played for so long and had been so successful because I had a good understanding of the game, but it’s all about being able to pass that knowledge on to players as a coach and I’ve had to work very hard at that over the years.

“That whole period of my playing career, I didn’t really appreciate the magnitude of all that I achieved at the time.

“There are some moments in my career I’ll never forget, like scoring that winner up in Derry at a crucial time, scoring the goal in Inchicore against Cork City in the second last game of the season.

“I never strove to be a footballer and if you look at my history, things just happened, and when I played I was just playing.

“Like up until recently when Ian Bermingham overtook me, I had the most league appearances for St Pat’s in club history and I had no idea, I had absolutely no idea that I held that record. That will tell how I was just going through the motions at the time.

“Sometimes now I get a bit nostalgic and, like I said, I dug into the attic a few years ago and probably part of that was wanting to touch and feel and see the success I had.

“I had a framed jersey from my testimonial that would have been just dumped up there, so I brought it down.

“I have a spare room in the house and I cleared it out and I put the jersey up on the wall along with some other memorabilia, because I thought to myself ‘Why not put it on display?’

“Maybe loads of people aren’t going to see it, but I can see it. Don’t be hiding things away because I had a good career and I should be proud of what I achieved.”

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