We’ve been hearing the song for 17 years now, the one about Séamus Coleman costing Everton just £60,000 when he signed from Sligo Rovers. Divide that figure by the number of appearances he has since made for the club, and each one of them cost the princely sum of £138.57. There are bargain buys and, well, there’s this.
Coleman’s announcement on Friday that he will end his playing career at Everton when his contract expires next month brought no end of tributes, including a lusty one from his current manager and the man who signed him back in 2009.
“It’s virtually impossible to put into words what I think of Séamus Coleman and the impact he’s had at this club,” said David Moyes. “Speaking as his manager over two spells, it has been a genuine privilege to watch him grow as a player, a leader, and a man.
“His influence behind the scenes is hard to measure and explain. He’s hugely respected by everyone and we will miss his presence on and off the pitch. He deserves to have a special place in the club’s history, but also in the hearts of every Evertonian because he embodies everything this club stands for. He needs a lot of credit as a human being for what he’s done for Everton.”
In an effort to ensure he stays at the club in some capacity, Moyes said that Coleman (37) had been offered “every job there is from groundsman to assistant”, but his eagerness to continue playing for Ireland could mean he looks for a new club this summer. “He knows there will always be a place here for him if he chooses to return in the future,” said Moyes.
Moyes did, of course, play a huge role in Coleman’s development, showing a belief in him that not all of his previous managers had shared. Few chapters in his career are cited as often as the one about the time he was called to the manager’s office at Sligo Rovers and told he had no future at the club. “I don’t think I even told my Dad. I couldn’t bear to,” he said when he spoke to The Irish Times many moons ago about that crushing day.
[Coleman calls time on Everton playing career after 17 yearsOpens in new window ]
Was it a bit like Decca turning down The Beatles? “Ha, yeah,” he laughed. Lest he sounded like he was getting too big for his boots, he swiftly added: “But to a smaller scale.”
In later years, that manager, Rob McDonald, recalled Coleman’s intense shyness, a trait that left him further doubting if he had the steel to make it in the game. Two years later, Coleman was singing the theme tune from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for his Everton “initiation”, having to go through the ordeal again when first called up by Ireland. He was, then, working on that shyness.
And he showed no end of steel to bounce back from that rejection as a teenager to forge a 17-year career at the highest level of the English game, not to mention winning 79 caps and going on to captain his country.
But at no point along the way has he lost his natural humility nor his innate decency, as many do, in every walk of life, when they hit the heights. He’s the finest of men and a pleasure for everyone to deal with.
And like all Donegal folk, no matter how far they travel, he never forgets his home place. His lengthy kickabouts, when he’d return in the summer, with a gaggle of kids wearing Coleman shirts on the green in his Killybegs estate, must have had the neighbours wiping their eyes. Nothing gave him more pleasure.
He’s always had that awareness, too, about how life has dealt him a significantly fairer hand than it has to so many of his old pals. “I’m very proud of where I come from,” he said a few years back. “They’ve been difficult times for Killybegs, especially with the fishing. There’d be a few of my friends who’ve left for England, a few in America, Australia. But I don’t get treated any differently. It’s not Séamus Coleman, the premiership footballer, it’s the lad they played Gaelic with, grew up with. They keep me grounded.”
Whatever he chooses to do next, you can only wish him the very best.