WRITE DAVID McGoldrick off at your peril.
The ex-Ireland international turns 37 next month and yet he is still playing regularly and scoring at a decent level — League Two with boyhood club Notts County.
Goalkeepers and defenders playing well into their 30s are far from unheard of, but it tends to be less commonplace with strikers.
But McGoldrick has made a career out of proving people wrong.
Moreover, he still lives and breathes football. Despite everything he has been through and the 20-year length of his playing career, the experienced pro could not help but feel disappointment when told he would be starting this season on the bench.
Nonetheless, injuries recently paved the way for his return to the starting XI. And so far, McGoldrick has five goals from six starts, including a crucial last-gasp equaliser against Chesterfield on Saturday.
At his previous club Derby County — a short but sweet stint in which he won multiple awards — McGoldrick was told that a player of his age should not expect to start every game of a gruelling 46-match season (and it could be 49 or more games if a team makes the playoffs or goes far in the cup competitions).
“[Derby boss] Paul Warne, who I respect very highly, told me to swallow the pill of knowing that I can’t train and play all the time,” McGoldrick tells The 42.
“Because one thing about me, I love training. I love working hard. I love playing football, like every footballer. So it’s hard to realise that your body can’t do it every day how you want it to, and sometimes having a rest is good for you.”
Those cautionary words did not stop McGoldrick from being an integral player for the Rams. He scored 22 goals in 39 appearances as they narrowly failed to reach the League One playoffs.
But he has become better at accepting that younger players will inevitably sometimes be picked ahead of him, such as Alassana Jatta, Notts County’s talented 25-year-old Gambian forward who has six goals from eight appearances already this season.
Of course, McGoldrick knows he is close to the end line. With his contract elapsing at the culmination of this season, the future is “up in the air”.
He adds: “I speak to many ex-pros, and they all say the same thing: ‘Play for as long as you can.’ They wish that they were still playing. And if they could, they would like to carry on playing. So, that does stick with me.
“But I’m quite real as well in terms of, I’ll know when I’m not good enough on the pitch, and I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
But the veteran forward insists it is easier to motivate himself nowadays.
“Everyone’s looking at my age and thinking that I should be retiring soon, or my legs have gone, or I’m not as fit as I was, or I’m not as quick as I was. So that motivates me to work even harder away from the football field to make sure that doesn’t give anyone an excuse [to overlook me].
“When I was in the Premier League, I played a team, and [I encountered] one of the Irish boys who played with me internationally. And he said: ‘Don’t worry about McGoldrick, his legs are gone.’ And that was when I was 31. We won that game, and I got a few assists. That kind of motivation geared me up.”
McGoldrick admits he has been lucky to avoid long-term injuries despite suffering from plenty of “little ones” throughout his career. Another primary reason for his longevity is his pure footballing ability.
“Many strikers rely on their pace. Once that has gone, they haven’t really got much. But I feel like I’ve still got the brain, I’ve still got the awareness, I’ve still got the quality.”
If it is McGoldrick’s final season, it could be a memorable one.
Notts County are currently third in League Two, two points off the leaders Port Vale.
Promotion would be a fitting way to end a distinguished career.
In 2023, McGoldrick turned down better wages and the opportunity in higher leagues to return to where he began his career and so far, he feels the decision has been vindicated.
“It means a lot. You know, playing for your team, [having] grown up watching them, being in the crowd, my kids come to every game. They’ve turned into little Notts County fans now. So that’s something that I wanted to do.”
McGoldrick is one of a select group of footballers to have scored at least 10 goals in all four of England’s top divisions, from the Premier League to League Two.
Players sometimes ask him about the challenge of adapting to the jump between these levels.
“From League Two to League One, I don’t believe there’s a massive jump, maybe some of the top teams,” he says.
“From League One to the Championship, there’s a massive jump. That’s when the big money comes in at the Championship, the athleticism [is noticeable] and the foreign players come over. And from the Championship to the Premier League, I’d say the top 10 are untouchable.
“I remember playing for Sheffield United against some of the top teams, playing against Liverpool at Anfield, and it felt like it was a different sport.
“But you don’t want it easy every week. You want to be testing yourself against the better players.”
Unsurprisingly, McGoldrick considers his two seasons in the Premier League to be the best in his career. The Nottingham-born attacker played 63 games in the top flight, scoring 10 goals.
After getting promoted, Sheffield United finished ninth in the table, just two points behind Arsenal. The following season, they were relegated.
McGoldrick believes Covid and competing in empty stadiums negatively impacted the Blades more than most teams.
“I think we would have qualified for Europe if Covid didn’t hit at the time and it went all behind closed doors.
“Bramall Lane is different when it’s full, and they’re singing The Greasy Chip Butty Song at the start, and the crowd are on top of you. We played some of the top teams in that first year and they looked like ordinary players.
“And then when Covid hit, you see they are world-class, because there were no fans there, and there was freedom.
“But when they’ve got 30,000 Blades shouting at them and being on top of them, it’s a completely different situation.
“We didn’t do it on the pitch [regardless] but the fans played a massive part in our success, for sure.”
McGoldrick made his Premier League debut at the age of 31. However, he is not regretful that it happened belatedly.
“I would say that it was the right time for me. I played my best football because I was playing in the right system, the right team, the manager trusted me, and played me all the time, even when I wasn’t scoring. I had an unbelievable relationship with the staff there.”
The story was all the more remarkable given that it came after perhaps McGoldrick’s lowest ebb.
Following five and a half seasons at Championship side Ipswich Town, the then-30-year-old was released at the end of the 2017-18 campaign.
“At the start of pre-season, I had no club,” he recalls. “I was training at Nottingham Forest — [the coaches were] Chris Cohen and Andy Reid with the U21s.
“And it was a good couple weeks into pre-season when I got a call from Sheffield United saying they need a striker, they want to come and look at me. They want me to come up for a week and train. And the next day I was there. And I felt I made an impression on the first day. And it was from there, everything just clicked.”
Before signing with the Blades, McGoldrick admits he wondered if he had a future in the game.
“When I was 30 and out of contract, I did think: ‘I could be in trouble here.’ No club wanted me, because I had returned from an injury after leaving Ipswich.
“I loved that place as well, but it just ended with the club wanting to try something new, new manager, new players, and I was one of the ones that got let go, which is understandable. I had a four-month injury, so few teams wanted to touch me.”
Managers, McGoldrick says, have been key to his success. Those who handled him well and gave him a chance, like Mick McCarthy, Chris Wilder and Paul Warne, invariably got the best out of him.
McCarthy was unique as he managed the striker at both club and international level.
In 2014, McGoldrick made his Ireland debut under Martin O’Neill in a 4-1 friendly win over USA but his time in the setup was sporadic and stop-start before McCarthy came onboard.
As with his club career, the striker was a late bloomer and played his best football towards the latter half of this Irish journey, scoring a crucial equaliser in a 1-1 Euro 2020 qualifier with Switzerland.
“I only scored one goal, and that was probably the best moment of my career, scoring a goal at the Aviva to equalise in that game.
“And I got a few man-of-the-match awards, and the fans took to me quite well. I really enjoyed my time playing for my country, and I met great people playing for the national team.”
He continued to impress under Stephen Kenny but opted to retire from Ireland duty following the Euro 2020 playoff defeat to Slovakia on penalties.
“I had a lot of stuff going off at the time in terms of family, I had a lot of niggles and injuries at once. Coming back, I would get injured quite a lot, and be unable to play the next week.
“I wanted to make my career longer after waiting so long to play at the top. So that was a decision that had to be made. And sometimes I do look back, and think: ‘Was it too soon?’ But I did represent my country and get 14 caps and a goal, and I’ll fondly remember that for the rest of my life.”
McGoldrick was adopted and originally unaware of his Irish heritage. He never met the grandfather who rendered him eligible for the Boys in Green.
“It was great for my football, but also for my life because I’ve had no history of my background. So [the FAI] told me a bit. And obviously, I’ve done a lot of research since then.”
McGoldrick is unsure whether he will go into coaching after retiring, but suspects he will stay in football in some capacity, maintaining the mantra that has served ‘Didzy’ well all these years.
“You hear the catchphrase: ‘Hard work beats talent.’ You hear it a lot, and kids will probably think ‘no,’ but hard work and tunnel vision [are important].
“Don’t worry about what other people say, football is a game of opinions. I’ve had managers that say that I’m not good enough and my legs have gone and ‘he’s passed it,’ but that’s just one man’s opinion.”
