From Man City to Derry City . . . Stephen Parkhouse was a Players’ Player

The Maiden City Soccer coach, who has completed the full circuit of senior clubs in the North West side - Derry City, Institute, Coleraine, Limavady United and Sligo Rovers - was one of those front men who not only scored goals but also created chances for others, something fans don’t always appreciate.

Parkhouse, who scored the opening goal on the Irish League’s famous ‘Morgan Day’ when Glentoran, thanks to Chris Morgan’s late winner on the final day of the 2004/05 season, pipped old rivals Linfield to the title.

The 38-year-old, who retired in 2014 to spend more time with his family, reveals he missed out on potential moves to Norway and England due to injury or unfortunate timing while recalling being in a dressing room when a current Championship manager wasn’t best pleased that his League of Ireland side was losing a charity match to ‘Westlife’!

How did it feel when coming back from Man City in 2000?

“Look, it doesn’t matter what level to come back to, if you aren’t right mentality and you don’t feel good about yourself, then it doesn’t matter what job you are in because you aren’t going to perform to the best of your abilities. If you are feeling good and other people are telling you that you are good, then you perform better.

“So, from people telling you have great potential and you can do this and that; that wasn’t really getting through to me and maybe I was stuck in a rut, just laying around the house and training two nights a week instead of the full-time stuff that I had been doing. I remember that period being tough.

“Then all of a sudden finances came into play. Suddenly I was getting a lift from Top of the Hill to go to Belfast to do some manual labour and coming back to train with Derry City. It definitely was a shock to the system.

“I suppose a lot of people are doing plenty of reflecting during lockdown and, yeah, I’ve thought a lot about my career in terms of what way it should and could have gone but coming back from England is one of the only real regrets I have.

“When I was released by Manchester City, they offered me the chance to stay on and train as I still had a few months left on my contract and could have gone on trial but because I had a knee injury I told them I would go home for a few weeks but once you get home, you get the home comforts and then Derry City were offering me a deal. Although the money wasn’t great, I just needed to feel loved again.

“Even when I left Derry to go to ’Stute, it was more about wanting to play. At Derry you had Liam (Coyle) and Gary Beckett there, players who were going to go down in the club’s history as some of the best ever players and I just wanted to play.

“I probably couldn’t comprehend why I wasn’t playing as much and maybe I wasn’t mature enough. I just expected to be playing but I was only 18 or 19 years old. In fact I had this same conversion with young David (Parkhouse) last year and reminded him there are not many 18-19 year olds leading the line at any level. Looking back, I was a bit naive in thinking that I should have been playing ahead of those players but when those players were injured I still wasn’t starting and stuff like that can get you down.

“But I remember going to ’Stute and after a few months they won promotion and even then I wasn’t really playing well. I clearly remember saying to myself ‘You need to get your act together’.

"It was never a case of going to pack the game in but I couldn’t have kept going the way I was because I knew I was going to lose interest so I spent a serious amount of time in the off season in 2002 when ’Stute got promoted to the Premier Division, getting myself really fit and that helped me have a good couple of seasons that got me back on track."