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The press conference was running late. In the next room, a commotion was going on. All the talk was of Jack Grealish and several rows of journalists were starting to wonder what the hold-up was all about.
The date was May 12, 2015, and the news had been broken by Ian Mallon, a football writer with close links to the Football Association of Ireland, in that morning’s Irish Independent.
Grealish was 19, fresh-faced, with none of the stubble that we see now, and so light-footed with a ball at his feet he could have been on paws.
He had been pencilled in to win his first senior call-up to the Republic of Ireland squad for two games at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium. The opposition was England, in a friendly, followed by a European Championship qualifier against Scotland. The print-outs were waiting to be handed out: a provisional 33-man squad with Grealish, of Aston Villa, as the stand-out name.