James McClean spent more than a decade representing the Ireland men's national team with fierce pride. Over 100 caps for his country, two major international tournaments, and a career that’s taken him from Derry City to the Premier League. Yet for many, he knows he will always be remembered for one decision: the choice not to wear a poppy.
Appearing on Virgin Media’s Living with Lucy, the Derry-born footballer opened up about that choice, the fallout that followed, and how it shaped his life.
“It was coming up to Remembrance Day,” McClean told presenter Lucy Kennedy. “I said, ‘I’m not wearing a poppy, these are my reasons why.’”
The poppy, a red flower symbol worn in Britain and by many football clubs each November, commemorates soldiers who have died in war. In the North of Ireland, however, it carries complex and deeply divisive connotations.
McClean grew up in Derry’s Creggan estate, where six of the men killed on Bloody Sunday lived. That history, he said, made it impossible for him to wear the symbol in good conscience. “Six or seven people from the Creggan estate died on Bloody Sunday,” he said. “So for me to wear a poppy in support of the people who carried out those atrocities… it frustrates me how people can’t see that.”
He was just 23 when the controversy first erupted during his time in England. McClean said manager at the time Martin O'Neill understood given that he came from a similar background, with this in mind he expected his club to stand by him, instead, he says, they released a statement before a match highlighting his decision not to wear the poppy. “If they hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal,” he said. “That statement caused havoc.”
What followed was a tidal wave of abuse. “I was told not to say anything and that it would blow over,” he said. “It didn’t. It went insane. I was getting death threats. People were saying I should be shot. Bullets were sent to the club. They even put security outside my hotel room door.”
The Wrexham player shared a story of a death threat made against him when he was on international duty with Ireland in 2012.
McClean recalled how his wife Erin, watching the match from their home in Newcastle, feared the worst. “She was panicking, thinking I was going to be shot on TV,” he said quietly. “Over the years it’s affected Erin and my mam a lot more than it’s ever affected me. I’m just like, ‘ah, it is what it is.’”
Growing up in Derry during the final years of the Troubles left its mark. “There’d be riots non-stop and you’d be involved in them yourself,” he told Kennedy. “From the age of 11 or 12, I knew how to make [petrol bombs](https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DQJrDyZj5/?mibextid=wwXIfr).”
Despite everything, McClean said he has no regrets. “I could have easily worn a poppy and sold myself out and been known for my football,” he reflected.
> “But I’ve stayed true to myself.”
For all the controversy that has followed him, McClean’s honesty on Living with Lucy offered rare perspective on what that decision meant not as a political gesture, but as a matter of identity, history, and conscience.
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