Paddy McCourt has revealed that Celtic have had three Derry City youth players over on trial.
Derry has been well sourced by Celtic in recent years with McCourt, Niall McGinn and Michael Duffy making the move in recent seasons. Shane Duffy took the tourist route via Everton, Blackburn and Brighton.
Among his fellow players McCourt has legendary status from his exploits on the training ground with only some fitness issues preventing him from hitting the heights on a consistent basis.
The recently launched Celtic Huddle Podcast put in a call to the Derry Pele who was in upbeat form as he joined Mark Wilson, Frank McAvennie and Murdo MacLeod for a chat.
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McAvennie asked if he had found any Paddy McCourt’s in his new role as Technical Director at Derry City with the legend replying:
We’ve got plenty of talent coming through the Academy at the minute. We actually had three over at Celtic in February before Lockdown came in. So, they did reasonably well and they’re probably going to go back once things improve. We are scouring everywhere in the area to find fresh talent.
McCourt was signed under Gordon Strachan in 2008 but it was a year later that he got his chance under Tony Mowbray, marking his breakthrough with memorable goals against Falkirk and St Mirren.
The maverick winger left Celtic in 2013 for spells at Barnsley, Brighton and Luton before returning to Ireland and winding down at Finn Harps in 2018.
