FOUR YEARS AGO Paul Sharry’s sporting focus was on soccer and life with Shamrock Rovers.
He may have been a Mullingar native but Sharry plied his soccer trade in the capital.
He started off in the underage ranks with Cherry Orchard before switching allegiances to Shamrock Rovers. His parents continued to cart him up and down the N4 as he climbed up through the ranks quickly.
Sharry established himself as a proficient left-back and by 2009 he was involved in the first team under Pat Scully.
Yet then he broke his ties and returned to his roots in Mullingar to play Gaelic football with his club St Loman’s and graduating to the county senior side. On Sunday he is at the heart of the Westmeath defence in their Leinster championship opener against Carlow.
“I just felt GAA was a better suit for me because all my friends – the likes of Conor Lynam, John Heslin, lads I grew up playing with – I just felt more at home in the GAA so I stuck with that. At the end of the day, I had to make a choice.
“If you want to make the most of your career at one sport, you’re best off focussing all your energy on one team because if you are split you’re going to go 50-50 on both.”
24 year-old Sharry runs his own strength and conditioning business ‘Next Generation Speed’ and believes his soccer experience has served him well in that regard.
“Soccer gave me a huge head start in Gaelic. I felt, not saying anything bad about Gaelic because it has progressed so much, but back when I played with Cherry Orchard, there was a lot more training and it was related to the sport itself whereas Gaelic back in those days was nearly laps, laps and more laps.
“Soccer had moved onto to giving you speed and aerobic fitness, but Gaelic has got there now. We (Next Generation Speed) do a lot of work with teams and there is another side of the business where we work with women trying to lose weight or guys who want to tone up and put on extra muscle.”
Shamrock Rovers team huddle.
Pic: INPHO/Donall Farmer
Any regrets when he saw Shamrock Rovers sampling the high life of European football and getting to play Tottenham Hotspur in White Hart Lane?
“No, the money never really crossed my mind. What made the decision for me was the GAA and what it stands for. It all about the chance of paying with the lads you grew up with and then you have the likes of Dessie Dolan, Denis Glennon and Gary Connaughton, lads that I watched when I was 14.
“They were my heroes. When I was young, I would never really have been watching Shamrock Rovers on TV, it would have been Westmeath. It was just like a dream that I wanted to follow.
“I was very unlucky not to play against Sunderland when I was with Rovers. It was my sister’s wedding the day before, so I was very careful at it and I was driving up the following day for the game but there was torrential rain and the game was called off. It was a bit of a disaster. But I have a chance now to play in Croke Park against Dublin if we beat Carlow.”
