McCabe making waves at Celtic

Young Ballinagh man Colin McCabe is making great progress in professional football across the water. On the books at Glasgow giants Celtic, he made his first team bow on loan for Stenhousemuir last season and continues to impress.
PAUL FITZPATRICK caught up with the young goalkeeper to find out more.

 

How are things going for you at present?

I'm currently injured, I had appendicitis and had to get an operation roughly about four weeks ago so that's kind of where I'm at at the minute. It's the first time now in a while I've been injured so I'm currently just back jogging and doing a few exercises in the gym and monitoring it.
So hopefully now in two or three weeks I can get back playing because it's an important time of the season, there are big games coming up.
That's where I just want to get back at the minute.

It must be annoying to be ruled out of games. Are you one of those players who gets very frustrated when they are on the injured list?

No, to be honest with you, because it's quite a good time to take a step back and look at yourself as a player and as an athlete and develop your game in ways that you don't when you're constantly playing and training.
In the last couple of weeks I've been able to tap into mindset things and stuff like that and just kind of focus on my diet a bit more, take a step back and plan in my mind where i can improve when I get fully fit.
It's been a good challenge for me in the last couple of weeks because you look at areas you don't look at when you're constantly training and you're just focused on keeping yourself fit every day.
When you're playing your mind is on every Saturday but now when I'm not playing, it's a good time to look how I have been playing on Saturdays and see where I can improve and go and talk to my coaches and ask them what they think about my progress over the last couple of months and stuff like that. It's different,
it's the first time I've been injured and it is frustrating because I'm in the gym every day and I'm looking out at the fellas training but I just have to take my time and let my body heal and come back fully fit hopefully in a couple of weeks.

How do you like Glasgow itself?

It's quite good. I've obviously been here since I was 16, I've just recently turned 20 so I'm here four years. It's a second home now to be honest with you. The people are very nice and when you're at Celtic, half the fans are Irish or they have connections to Ireland so there's never any trouble like that. It's fairly similar to Ireland, the weather is the same, the people, and it's only a 40-minute flight back home so it's not a bad spot to be living in.
It's a city so it's different to Ballinagh anyway.
 
Were you homesick when you first arrived?

No. When I first went over I knew it was the opportunity of a lifetime, not many fellas get that chance, so I kind of threw myself into it and just knuckled down and worked hard. My parents came over every six weeks or whenever they could and that gave me something to look forward to but because I knew it was something I really wanted to do, I never really got home sick.
I missed my friends and I missed parties ans family and things like that but like I said, it's the chance every boy wants so In just knuckled down and tried to focus on the football.

I imagine it's a daunting experience for young players to arrive at Celtic. What's the atmosphere like around the club itself?

It is a very good club for young players coming through. When I first came in the door there were a few older players, boys from Cork or Waterford or Dublin, so there were always lads to look up to and they showed you the ropes when you first came in.
Now I'm slightly older, training with the first team keepers every day, they always show you respect and in training they'll always give you advice on where they think you can improve. So it is a great club with great coaches and great people running the club and the fans are probably the best in the world as well.

Are you starting to get recognised a lot off the pitch?

Not really. When I have been out on a night out, in maybe an Irish pub or a nightclub, an odd person would recognise me, some Celtic fans might be friends with me on Facebook or have seen a picture of me and they would recognise me. It is quite strange but in the city itself obviously you don't go out wearing your Celtic colours.
For every Celtic fan there's a Rangers fan as well. We're advised when we're in the city, as Celtic youth footballers, to keep yourself to yourself. If anybody stops and talks to you, if they're a Celtic fan give them your time but don't go around singing Celtic songs or wearing your Celtic colours or anything like that because that just brings attention to yourself.
You're told by the coaches to take care of yourself when you go into the city. Me coming from a town like Ballinagh, being thrown into a big club in a big city, you really had to watch yourself and what you were doing. Now thankfully I haven't had any run-ins like that but you do have to be careful. There are certain parts of the city...
Next thing you know it could be all over the newspaper or on social media so you're not really wanting that bad publicity obviously.

In terms of your career, you have made great strides in a short space of time. How do you feel things have gone for you lately?

It's been quite good to be honest with you. I went back out on loan this season. It's certainly a challenge, the physical side of it and consistency side of it where you're trying to keep yourself fit and perform at your best on a Saturday.
When you're playing youth games, as a Celtic goalkeeper, you don't tend to be that busy. So as you go out on loan, you're finding more out about your game and it's the side where you have to prepare for yourself, you have to cook your own meals before your game and stuff like that.
You're learning more about yourself physically in each game and it's good because then you're getting your name out there and people start recognising you, if you're doing well there's people talking about you which is obviously what you want. You want to show the manager of the club's first team that you're good enough to step in whenever he feels that he needs you.

How do these loan deals come about? A team has an injury crisis and they send a call out looking for players?

How it came about was they were training in mid week and all of a sudden two keepers got injured and they needed a goalkeeper and they asked around. They came to Celtic, being the biggest club in Scotland, and asked what keepers they had available. They heard my name and they didn't know anything about me because I was young and I didn't have any experience and they just took me, by chance.
Obviously I went out, I did well and managed to impress and then they wanted me back for this year as well, which was good because the more games you get, the more recognition you get – it's all good for your career, especially as a young goalkeeper. It's all about experience and learning from every game.

At your age, you must be ahead of the curve in terms of the career progression of a goalkeeper.

I definitely would be. There was an Italian at the club at Celtic who was 22, 23 and he had no first team experience and he was struggling to go out on loan because people were going 'okay, where have you been?' and he hadn't been anywhere. He hadn't really played any big games, he had only played U20 games.
So being 19 at the time last year, I was very young. But it's great experience, it's just all about playing as many games as you can because it's a unique position. You can only play one goalkeeper.
You can't really replicate what you get on a Saturday in training. I feel like my game has definitely improved over the last year moreso than it would have if I wasn't out on loan. I can see that as a positive anyway.