{"id":10560,"date":"2022-06-21T12:49:26","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T12:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10560"},"modified":"2022-06-21T12:49:26","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T12:49:26","slug":"he-gave-me-my-debut-in-professional-football-which-im-immensely-proud-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10560","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;He gave me my debut in professional football, which I&#8217;m immensely proud of&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A NEW EPISODE of <em>The Football Family<\/em> podcast \u2014 a collection of longform interviews with Irish footballers of past and present \u2014 is now available to <em>The42<\/em> members.<\/p>\n<p>Our guest on Episode 13 is Patrick Cregg, who has been working as assistant manager at St Patrick\u2019s Athletic since September following Stephen O\u2019Donnell\u2019s appointment as boss.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n    Patrick Cregg playing for Arsenal against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>    Source: EMPICS Sport<\/p>\n<p>The pair were together as teenagers at Arsenal, where Cregg managed to make a first-team breakthrough under Arsene Wenger in 2004, when the Gunners were Premier League champions on the back of their \u2018Invincibles\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Click Here: <a href='https:\/\/www.moshop.jp\/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%83%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A6%E3%83%8B%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0' title='\u30b5\u30c3\u30ab\u30fc\u30e6\u30cb\u30d5\u30a9\u30fc\u30e0'>\u30b5\u30c3\u30ab\u30fc\u30e6\u30cb\u30d5\u30a9\u30fc\u30e0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The midfielder from Dublin made three League Cup appearances, one of which came as an 18-year-old in a quarter-final against Manchester United at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA very calm man, from the experience I would\u2019ve had with him,\u201d he said of Wenger. \u201cVery relaxed. I remember being on the bench against Manchester United in the Carling Cup. We were losing 1-0 and I just remember how calm he was. He just kept saying \u2018we\u2019ll get the next goal\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember coming in at half-time, everyone was just sitting there and I\u2019m thinking in my head: is anyone going to say anything? Obviously I wasn\u2019t going to say anything but at 1-0 down\u2026 the manager sort of stayed outside and then came in and spoke, but it was so calm and relaxed, it was like, \u2018oh wow\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was obviously his method. Maybe towards the end he might have changed because the pressure might have changed him and got so much, but at that time he could do no wrong. The team that had won the league the year before were phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old added: \u201cNot that I had an unbelievable relationship with him, I\u2019m not making that out at all. But he gave me my debut in professional football, which I\u2019m obviously immensely proud of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\n    Source: The42 Podcasts\/SoundCloud<\/p>\n<p>Cregg recounted the \u201csurreal\u201d experience of sharing a dressing room with the likes of Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas, and how his prospects of further first-team opportunities weren\u2019t aided by a lack of awareness of the importance of nutrition: \u201cI used to go and get a pizza every night, and that\u2019s not even a lie. I just wasn\u2019t educated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although he had stints with Shamrock Rovers and St Pat\u2019s towards towards the end of his career, Cregg played mostly in Scotland. The former Ireland U21 international made nearly 200 top-flight appearances \u2014 for Falkirk, Hibernian, St Mirren and St Johnstone \u2014 and also played in a Scottish Cup final against Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>You can hear the full episode with Patrick Cregg by becoming one of our valued members. Details of how to do so for just \u20ac5 per month \u2014 or \u20ac42 for a year \u2014\u00a0are available here.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>To get in touch with the show, e-mail\u00a0thefootballfamily@the42.ie<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A NEW EPISODE of The Football Family podcast \u2014 a collection of longform interviews with Irish footballers of past and present \u2014 is now available to The42 members. Our guest on Episode 13 is Patrick Cregg, who has been working as assistant manager at St Patrick\u2019s Athletic since September following Stephen O\u2019Donnell\u2019s appointment as boss&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}