David Sneyd Reports from Newport

WALK UP THE concrete steps, through the white UPVC double doors, and wait for the welcome.

“Embrace the chaos, love the chaos,” Graham Coughlan says. “It could be another day of wacky races.”

The Newport County manager’s presence fills the small training ground, tucked away in the corner of facilities owned by the local county council.

It’s a little after 9am on Thursday morning and a couple of driving instructors set off for lessons as players begin to arrive.

Once you enter, there are doors to either side. On the right is the players’ dressing room; a few feet to the left is the gym.

The common room has couches and a large table where the players’ water bottles and supplements are being laid out. Shots of ginger turmeric are the order of the day.

There is a dart board on a wall and the panels on the bottom half are painted: yellow and black for club colours; green, white and orange for country.

We’re in south Wales at a club currently 12th in England’s League Two but the dominant accents are from Dublin, Wexford, Kerry (with a tinge of New York) and west Belfast.

The entrance to Newport's training ground.

Coughlan’s is as strong now as it was almost 30 years ago when he left Clondalkin to begin a career that started at Blackburn Rovers and has taken him to the four corners of Britain. But today will be a new height – personally and professionally – and the January schedule on the wall spells out just why this has been a week with a difference:

Saturday 20th – Wrexham (h)

Sunday 28th – Manchester United (h) – Live on BBC 1, 4.30pm.

But some things don’t change.

“Here, where’s the breakfast?” Coughlan’s assistant, Inchicore native Joe Dunne, asks as more of the squad filters in.

There are several boxes of opened cereal jammed into shelves but on a bitter morning like this, something more substantial is required.

Club captain Ryan Delaney – from New Ross – is standing by the counter making cups of tea for whoever wants one. There are a few microwaves, a small fridge, a kettle and a coffee machine plonked on top. He checks the small white board hanging beside a large clock with a cracked face that details who is supposed to be in charge of the £20 breakfast club for the week.

United’s security and logistics personnel have also just arrived in south Wales and booked out a floor of the Celtic Manor resort. An hour or so before it is due to start, Coughlan and Dunne still don’t know where they will be training.

Pitch 1 is right outside, with the athletics track around it, and is looking most likely because of the rain that has fallen all week. That’s not ideal given it’s a rugby pitch and the fixed goals at either end means they can’t use full dimensions for 11 v 11 work.

The day before, the bad weather meant they had to make a call and rent out an indoor all-weather pitch half an hour away in Cardiff. That comes at a cost. So, too, does using Pitch 1 just a few feet away and, as Dunne susses it out, he spots a member of the council’s staff who will make sure to take note of their use and add it to the club’s bill for the month. There are others who have been known to turn a blind eye.

Assistant manager Joe Dunne is originally from Inchicore.

Pitch 2 is a short walk away around the far side and is the preferred destination given it has a better surface and that is the one the session has been planned for. More importantly, it’s already booked and won’t cost extra.

“We want the session to be about speed, quick and sharp,” Dunne explains.

Coughlan points out the window, beyond the three large wind turbines, to the floodlights  in the distance. “That’s where we want to be. Dragon Park. The Welsh FA’s centre. We can use it on Saturday, at least. That’s like Wembley,” he says.

If the rain continues and neither pitch is deemed suitable, it could be into the gym or a local boxing club to do a session. The local park, even the playground, has been used in the past. “The monkey bars, some circuits, getting them running up and down slides, using the swings. A bit of fun for an hour. What did I tell ye? Wacky races,” Coughlan says.

His reasoning is sound and three decades in the professional game has only served to reinforce some of the values he had growing up. He loved Gaelic with Round Towers but once he started playing for Cherry Orchard in the Leinster Senior League at 15, this was the path he wanted.

“Our standards are about character, resilience, adapting to circumstance and overcoming what comes at you.”

Just as well because Dunne has realised that nine of the 19 FA Cup balls issued to the club are also missing.

He deals with that while Coughlan returns to the small office he shares with his right-hand man.

He says that he’s “old school” and maybe there is no other way to be when you’ve spent your playing days as a centre back with clubs like Livingston, Plymouth Argyle, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Shrewsbury Town and Southend United.

He’s 49 and this is his third job in management after spells at Bristol Rovers and Mansfield Town.

“Old school” can be open to interpretation, though, and the environment he has created is one of openness among his players, but also accountability.

Outside his office, the story is told of one young player who arrived in pre-season for a trial after previously being with a top-six Premier League club. His quality in training was clear, his impact in games instant with goals.

Graham Coughlan at his desk.

There was just one problem.

Everyone hated him.

He brought in his £5,000 Rolex, some even more expensive jewellery, and made sure everyone knew.

There was knock after knock on Coughlan’s door.

“It was just bravado, he only thought that is how he had to behave to fit in. I tried to chip away at it. I showed off my Argos watch to him. I said to the players we have in our leadership group that I liked him as a player. I said I think we can get through to him. But to a man, the lads didn’t want to sign him, so I respected their judgement.

“I have to protect that dressing room. They will run through brick walls and deal with anything that comes their way so I can’t put that at risk.”

It’s why Coughlan puts so much emphasis on doing character background checks with all potential new signings. “Sometimes it feels like a police investigation,” he says, explaining how a new signing prefers one coffee chain over another and that his fondness for Mars bars and the odd kebab is a risk worth taking.

Dunne returns with bad news. They’re heading for Pitch 1.

They bring out the bags of balls, begin to lay out cones, and then start wheeling the goals onto the pitch.

The intensity of the session increases steadily.

So too does the rain.

The sounds of the training pitch echo everywhere.

“Skin him!”

“Faster.”

“Better.”

“Brilliant.”

“Fast, fast, fast.”

A head pops through the doors of the building to have a look.

Josh Seberry wishes he was out there. The defender turned 19 earlier this month and celebrated with another day of rehab on a broken leg suffered against Notts County last October.

It was a game no one expected him to be anywhere near when he joined from Shelbourne last summer. A weekend trial that stretched to two weeks became a two-year professional contract.

Josh Seberry is recovering from a broken leg.

The plan was to ease in and develop over time. Then injuries gave him a chance that he took. By October, he was first choice and playing alongside Delaney.

Seberry had only trained with Damien Duff’s first team prior to that but was a standout performer in their U19s. He spent the previous academy years with local club Drogheda United having previously been on the same St Kevin’s schoolboy side as Evan Ferguson.

“What he’s doing isn’t normal,” the teenager says of his former team-mate.

Seberry’s start in the game is. He took an opportunity that came his way and has already been dealt a blow. A test of resilience, of character. Does he really want this kind of life? Newport is the kind of club where that resolve and desire is tested every day.

More so when you are the only one in the gym doing rehab on an injury and the rest of your teammates are preparing to face Manchester United.

“The ligament down this side here had to be sewn back on. I’ve a five-inch plate going down the other side. I’ll never be able to bend the right as much as the left. I’ll need insoles for my shoes but this is the new normal that I have to adapt to. I’m going to make sure I make a better normal than before,” Seberry says.

He should be back in the next couple of months.

It’s a different story for Mark O’Brien.

The 31-year-old has accepted that his playing days are over. “I had my first open heart surgery at 16 and had my second one at 27,” he says.

He played every season in between like it was his last. “Because it could have been, that’s how I’ve lived my life.”

Blood leaking from his aortic valve back into his heart forced it to work at three times the normal rate.

Former captain Mark O'Brien.

Doctors told him he would have died at 16 if a routine scan while at Derby County had not caught the problem in time. He was already a first-team player, breaking in just before Jeff Hendrick.

He had no symptoms as a teenager but by 27, having captained Newport and been part of teams that played against Leeds United, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Middlesbrough and Manchester City during previous FA Cup runs, he was feeling fatigue, dizziness and lightheadedness.

Dealing with the aftermath of the second surgery was made even more difficult as it was during the Covid pandemic. Counselling and antidepressants were required. He is coming through the other side and works as a player welfare officer now.

“I will always miss playing. When I’m 50, I will miss it, so just because I had to retire early and it wasn’t what I wanted, that should make me bitter and hate the game — I love it,” he says.

“Character and positivity will get you further than you believe in football and in life.”

The session finishes with some set-piece work and the drug testers are waiting for a select few.

“Hair loss treatment is OK, isn’t it?” one player asks.

Coughlan returns and is prepared to take the players into the gym for the second session of the day.

Coughlan (left) issues an instruction in training.

He’s informed by the strength and conditioning coach that it’s not required so follows his lead. He heads for the gym alone and jumps on a bike for 25 minutes.

Dunne sits at the desk opposite Coughlan’s in their shared office and begins to take off his socks. He leans back, stretches out and wiggles his toes.

He’s 51 in May and has called England his home since leaving aged 15 in 1989. His father died only a few years before that and he knew he wanted a different life.

“Football was my ticket out of Ireland.”

When he goes back now to visit his mother on Nash Street, or his older sister who “lives somewhere near town”, he keeps it simple. “I’m grand on the M50 and when I get to Ballyfermot or Inchicore. Anywhere else I’m in trouble, I’m lost.”

He joined Gillingham, working under Damien Richardson, and met his wife when he was 17. Between 1990 and 2002, he played close to 300 games in the old Second, Third and Fourth Divisions with Gillingham and Colchester United. Injury forced him to finish at 28 and that allowed him to follow his true passion of coaching and managing.

He was in charge for more than 100 games himself with Colchester and Cambridge United before a new working relationship was formed alongside Coughlan at Southend.

“People at the top can earn a hell of a lot. We have to work and move around. Not just to keep our ambition alive but to keep that drive to help people alive,” Dunne says.

“When I was younger, I drove myself into oblivion. You miss your kids growing up and the lives they have. As you get older you realise you don’t have to kill yourself to stay in the game but just have to work smarter.”

There are still sacrifices, of course, and both Dunne and Coughlan share a house while their wives and families are in Essex and Sheffield, respectively.

This weekend offers a kind of reunion for so many at Newport.

Newport captain, and proud New Ross native, Ryan Delaney.

United are in town and everyone wants a ticket. Two temporary stands have been installed at Rodney Parade so they can cram more than 9,000 fans in.

There will be arrivals from Ireland and Coughlan has had to commandeer one of the club’s mini-buses to collect his parents and other family and friends from the airport on Saturday night.

The same goes for Delaney.

Coughlan signed the 27-year-old last summer and after a few weeks made him his captain. Newport is his ninth club in a career that began 10 years ago at Wexford. A move to Burton Albion was followed by a season on loan at Cork City in which they won the League of Ireland Premier Division and FAI Cup.

He bounced from Rochdale to a loan spell at Wimbledon, then on to Bolton Wanderers, Morecambe and another loan at Scunthorpe United before finding his way to Coughlan.

“There have been times when I’ve thought, ‘This has to work for me, these next few months are make or break’,” Delaney says.

“My family instilled perseverance in me, to fight for my dreams. I told them I’d live my dream for them and make them part of this journey. As a footballer and a man I wanted to make them proud and this game makes every sacrifice worthwhile.”

His family is tight. Delaney is an only child and his mother, Kay, a single parent. But he wasn’t raised alone in New Ross. Grandparents Willie and Margaret Delaney are influences that remain steadfast.

“I’m proud to be their grandson, I would not be here without them. They have given so much to me. From Ferrycarrig Park to Ballybofey, they have followed me everywhere. Now they get to see me walk out against Manchester United. It’s a dream.”

Delaney is a United fan and his closest friend in the game also now shares a dressing room and rented digs with him. Shane McLoughlin was alongside him at Wimbledon and also Morecambe. He was born in the Bronx but returned to Castleisland in Kerry when his parents decided they wanted to return home to raise the family.

They will both be in Newport along with his two siblings.

“It’s almost like an addiction. You fall in love with the game. The love you have for it, it surrounds you, it takes over you, it just grips you. You get setbacks and if you can overcome them you know if that hunger is still there.

“I have that fire in the belly and a lot more to give. There have been times when I’ve thought if I’m better off putting effort into something else because this is my whole life. But it moulds you and makes you enjoy these little extras when a game like this comes around.

It’s time to leave the training ground for an hour or so and make tracks for Rodney Parade, where an estimated 50 media outlets have assembled for the build up to the biggest game in the club’s history.

The 42 joins Coughlan and Dunne in the car for the short journey, topics of conversation range from whether they will have a chipper for dinner that evening to how they will sharpen up their set-pieces in the next session.

As they turn down a small road leading to the stadium, a sign informs them that their preferred route will be closed off on Sunday for security reasons.

All of the players have been told to report for media duties.

“Some might not speak to anyone but we’ve got here as a team and should be here as a team to get a sense of the build-up,” Coughlan reasons.

They line up at the office window to collect their complimentary tickets. The sold-out signs are all around.

In a suite upstairs, Coughlan and Delaney take to the top table to field questions. As well as United coming to town, it’s also been a significant week with the takeover by former Swansea City chairman Huw Jenkins finally confirmed having been ratified by the supporters’ Trust in September.

Coughlan as a player with Sheffield Wednesday. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Losses of £1.2 million the previous year saw Coughlan’s budget slashed to the lowest in the division, almost half that of their nearest rival, and Jenkins’ arrival is badly needed to help drag them from the weeds.

A minimum of £315,000 has also been secured for reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup and then being picked for live TV.

It’s dark by the time The 42 returns to the training ground with Coughlan and Dunne. No one else is left. The three washing machines and tumble dryers that had been humming all day are quiet. The smell is a mixture of fabric softener and dried sweat.

Dunne ties up the black bin bags and gets them ready for the cleaner who is due tomorrow. Coughlan rummages through the fridge and picks out a portion of chicken chow mein with his initials on it. These pre-made meals are supplied by a local business but are deducted from the players’ and staff’s wages each month.

Coughlan returns to his desk, throws his bottle of Lynx Africa shower gel in his bag, and cracks open an ice cold bottle of original Lucozade.

It’s been a long day – it began at 7.30am and it’s approaching 5.30pm.

Dunne has his laptop open again, poring over footage from the drone that recorded training. Analyst Conor McGaharan, from west Belfast, has made sure to have it ready.

Coughlan has a ‘Good Luck’ card with shamrocks pinned to a notice board. Above him on the white wall are two photographs. One is of the Plymouth squad he captainted that won promotion to the Championship 20 years ago.

The second is from that same season with his daughter Shannon on his shoulders. She’s 22 now – a striker for Sheffield United’s reserve side – and loves the game just like he does.

United are one of the main reasons for that, although his son is a Wednesday season ticket holder.

Coughlan’s grandad worked at the docks and would help when he and his father would board the late ferry from North Wall for Liverpool the night before a game. He’d travel back after and play a match on a Sunday.

A journey to Old Trafford that he undertook countless times in his youth would continue from a shorter distance while a player at Blackburn. “Throughout my career when I’d have games, I’d always see when United were playing and I could get there after.”

Roy Keane during his time as Sunderland boss. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The demands of fighting to sustain that life in the game naturally made it more difficult. But football allowed him to meet his heroes. “I remember bumping into Kevin Moran and just looking at him in shock. I goes, ‘You are a fucking legend’. We just laughed. I mean he played for Dublin, United and Ireland. What a life.”

When he was captain at Sheffield Wednesday, Bryan Robson was manager of city rivals Sheffield United. Their paths would cross and Coughlan was in awe.

“The ultimate, my idol,” he says. “Although it’s hard to say that because of Roy Keane.”

When Coughlan was manager of Mansfield and Dunne was by his side, the first phone call he got was from the Corkman. “He asked if he could come to training and spend some time with us. The best fucking four hours you could imagine.”

Not that the get-together was their first interaction.

“I got my face smashed up at Sunderland when he was manager there and I was captain of Wednesday. My front teeth were knocked out. It was 10 minutes before half-time and Roy left the dugout to come and check on me.

“I was sparko lying on the bed. My wife came down. Roy says to her: ‘I’ve bet you’ve seen him in better states on a Saturday night’. I went to the hospital and the next morning the phone goes: ‘Howya boy?’ I straight away just said: ‘Who the fuck is this?’ Roy said: ‘What? You don’t fucking remember? You were fucking dying in front of me yesterday and I had to give you the last rites’. It was great from him. My own fucking manager didn’t even check on me!”

For all Coughlan’s breathless enthusiasm and continued passion for the game, the end of his Sheffield Wednesday career remains painful.

“I am scarred, I do have scars. But we’re all still in football because we love it.”

He was club captain at Hillsborough and playing the best football of his career at the highest level he would reach in the Championship. He was their Player of the Year in 2005/06, feeling strong at 31 and then tragedy struck the following season.

His 18-year-old brother died in a tragic drowning incident with a friend in a Dublin canal. He was allowed compassionate leave to return to Dublin for the funeral.

“My world fell apart,” he says. “I didn’t care about life, I didn’t care about anything. I was grieving for my brother but I think they thought I was away enjoying life.”

Coughlan recalls being phoned up and asked if he would be returning for the next game. When he reminded them that he had just buried his brother and required a bit more time to spend with family, he thought they understood.

The following week at training, he was told he no longer had a future at the club and that he could leave.

Coughlan is the last one out of the building.

“I left the training ground in the rain like a zombie. Then there was a lot of anger.”

Steve Cotterill offered him an escape to Burnley on loan and Mark Robins gave him hope at Rotherham United. “Those two men patched me back up for football and my wife and family patched me back up in life.

“I hope my players know that I care about them and want the best for them too, I want them to have freedom and showcase their abilities. I don’t want restraints on them because there is no better feeling in the world as a footballer than being trusted and allowed to express yourself. Now they get to do it against Manchester United.”

Dunne – a Liverpool fan, by the way – then closes his laptop and begins talking through some more set-piece plans. The two men go back and forth. “We’ll sort it at the house later,” Dunne says.

“Grand,” Coughlan replies.

Dunne offers to take his washing and heads to the kit room to sort it. As he begins loading it into the machine he whistles Amhrán na bhFiann, letting out a shout at the end.

“Come on, Ireland!”

Coughlan then responds from his office.

“Come on, Newport!”