Jackson Irvine

Like on football, as anyone could possibly be, my parents often tell stories when I was at school and, you know, you have to write down, you know, what are you going to do when you grow up?

And, you know, and even up until when I was, you know, 15, you know, where most kids are already in professional academies, in...

you know, starting in the way into the professional game, you know, and I'm just at high school in Melbourne and I was still saying to my teachers, no, but I'm going to play football.

Like that's it.

That's all there is for me.

Like it has to be that.

I had no other path that I was even interested in pursuing.

And I think it was definitely my mentality that was what has driven me to this point.

So I was 16 when I went.

Yeah, yeah.

And again...

The older you get and the further from that time you get, you reflect on it in a different way.

And again, I had no concept of the scale of what I was doing moving to the other side of the world without my family to go and pursue this dream of professional sport.

I was just like, yeah, well, that's, you know, that's what I've got to do.

And you don't even think about, you're so selfish.

You don't even think about your parents.

You don't think about like, you know, what they, the sacrifice that they have to make to give you that chance.

And even that me even getting that opportunity would never have come without,

them like and having the fortunately to have access to resources to be able because i was offered a trial by an extension of of the celtic youth academy whose cousin was my coach at frankston pines which was my last kind of club that i played senior football for in in victoria and um you know they said well i've got this kid here he's he's got something and they basically said to me if you ever they knew i had scottish family and they said if you ever come over to visit family

we'll throw you in for a week and you can have trained with the team and see how you go.