Richie Towell has spoken out about the despair he battled through after being released by Celtic.
This afternoon the goalscoring midfielder will be hoping to guide Dundalk to glory in the FAI Cup Final but the summer of 2012 is one that won’t easily be forgotten.
When Pat Fenlon took over from Colin Calderwood Towell’s Hibs career came to a halt with a season long loan rendered pointless.
As Scottish football battled Armageddon there was little openings to be found forcing Towell to return to Dublin to rebuild his career.
“I have such a hunger to push myself on week-in week-out that I didn’t have at Celtic,” he explained. Getting let go from Celtic gave me the hunger to never have that feeling again. It wasn’t a nice feeling for me and my family. I came home and had no job so it was a tough period for me.
“I know that I probably will play in England or Scotland or at higher level at some stage if I want to continue to go on with my career and push myself on.
“But at the moment I am fully focused on what is in my own hands and where I am as a player. I know I have a lot to improve on. It’s something that I have worked tirelessly hard over the last couple of seasons to try and affect my game. It’s every little boy’s dream to play for their international team and I’m no different to any other boy.
“I always just try to concentrate on myself. I know how good I am. I don’t need other people to tell me how good I am even though it is nice, the little personal accolades. I know how hard I work week-in and week-out to do these things on the pitch so when they come off it is probably the just rewards.”
Looking at today’s match which is expected to attract 25,000 fans to the Aviva Stadium he added: “I think we would be favourites. Obviously we have won the league and won it by some distance. I think nobody will begrudge us that we are the best team in the league but it counts for nothing if you don’t step up to the plate in the final. Cork are not going to give it to us easy.
“They will be trying everything in their power to take it away from us but we have to be big enough and strong enough to be able to adapt to situations on the pitch and play our natural game and not let the crowd and everything else around get in our way.
“If you get caught up in the emotions all of the time, then your natural game goes out of the window. ”
Colin Healy and Liam Miller will be hoping to deny Towell a winners medal.
Good lad is Richie. Hopefully he follows the path of Danny Lafferty, young Irish left back who after loan spells at Ayr Utd he was released by Celtic. Lafferty went back to Ireland, played for Derry then got a move to Burnley, he spent last season playing in the Premier League (when he wasn’t injured) and is now in the Championship at Rotherham I think.
From being unemployed to playing in the English Premier League in 4 years, Lafferty proves lads like Towell who might not make it or be given a chance at Celtic should keep the faith.