Chapter 1: How did Troy Parrott's journey in football begin?
This is why we love football, because things like this can happen.
I love when he plays for his country.
I know he plays for his club, that's like his job, you know, but when he plays for his country, I love when he comes out and they're singing the national anthem and all. That's when I get shivers and everything watching that.
So this means the world to me, my family's here. Hi, I'm Troy Parrott and this is Inner Drive.
In 2019, you're getting your opportunities with Tottenham and certainly being involved in the first team. It's also when you get your first senior international cap against New Zealand. Mick McCarthy, early in the week, says that you're starting the game. It's not an hour before kick-off. That must have felt amazing.
I'm not sure is it pressure off the shoulders or not, but everybody knows that Troy's making his first senior start.
Yeah, it was great. Look, as I said before, growing up, I loved Ireland. I loved the Ireland team. So then to be Just getting thrown in there at 17 and being able to play in their green jersey in the Aviva was great.
Also with Mick as your manager, it feels like two different time zones have come together.
Yeah, I think that was the only time I was in the camp with Mick. No, it was great.
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Chapter 2: What was Troy's experience during his first senior international cap?
I also, when I forced went on loan, struggled with injuries a little bit, which set me back. But now looking back, it was tough.
When the loan didn't work out for him, I moved, he was with, when he went to, the Lawrence didn't walk out from, where was it, it was Ipswich and all that, and then when he went to MK Dance, He was living on his own at the time. He had his own place. He was living in his own apartment in Greenwich and stuff like that. And then we went to MK Don's.
I says, I'm going to move over and stay over there for a while with your son. And once I went over and I moved over there for two years and I brought the two younger kids with me and we rented out a house. We lived there. And then he started playing brilliant again. He started MK Dons, he started scoring the goals and we moved the press and he started doing it.
So I don't... I think in a round it was like as if... He missed his family and he was living on his own. When he was with the host family, he was living with a family. And then he moved over there and he was living on his own then. But then when I went over for two years, he started playing great again. And then he met his girlfriend.
It's difficult when you're living on your own and you're in a different country. So when we moved over, he started playing well and all again. It's mad. Family is just a big thing to me.
How does the reality of being a footballer in England at that stage hit home? The Tottenham Hotspur thing is parked temporarily in your mind at that stage. Now you probably feel like you're a grown-up, you're an adult, you're earning your living as a footballer in England. How does that reality sit?
Is there any sort of case where homesickness maybe starts to come in at all during that period of your life? Or how are you handling the grind of that stage?
No, I was fine. I liked it. But even when I was going on loans and stuff, my end goal was always back to Tottenham to play there. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the loans. Met some really nice people. Played for a lot of different clubs all over England, so it was nice.
Gary Rowett seemed to be a particularly good manager to you during those few loan spells. Is that correct to say that he would have been the best of the mentors that you would have had?
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Chapter 3: How did loan spells in England shape Troy's career?
And do you find that the body's holding up better then in terms of avoiding injuries? Definitely, definitely. I think around this time last season I kind of broke down a little bit. I missed the last four or five games of the season, I think. But this season I feel good. I've had no issues apart from at the start of the season, which was something that I couldn't control.
Can I ask you about the mentality piece that you talked about there? You mentioned there in the gym it's just about staying focused. But how else has the mentality changed? Because I think most modern elite sports people are at least interested in the idea of psychology and how their mind works. A lot of people just dismiss it because that's what works for them.
Are you somebody who taps into that?
No, I try to stay out of my own mind most of the time. I'm easy going. I believe in if something's going to happen, then it's going to happen.
That in itself is a fascinating insight into your mind. Is that, I don't want to use the word manifestation because that's probably a phrase that is sort of an alarm bell for you in terms of that psychology, somebody trying to put a label on how I think. But it kind of is manifestation.
A little bit. I try not to think into too much about anything really. Look, I'm just, as I said before, I'm easy going. I believe that if I keep doing what I'm doing and keep putting the work in, then I'll get the rewards. What keeps you grounded then?
What allows you to not think too much about things?
I'm not sure.
That's just the way I am. Going back to the injury that you couldn't do much about earlier this year, at the time, there's no good time to get injured. Was it particularly frustrating because the World Cup qualifiers were just about to start?
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Troy face while playing in the English football pyramid?
And then I couldn't actually play the next game to try and break the record. So it was frustrating for that reason as well. But yeah, missing the qualifiers was a big thing.
That sort of stuff is really important though. Like actually, again, top scorer this season, like being a goal scorer, that's the sort of stuff that you trade on. Like it may seem trivial to people that, oh, you didn't catch record X or Y, but not to you, like this is your livelihood.
Yeah, for sure. It might be only a small record of the most goals in consecutive games or something, but it's hard to do nine games every game. But yeah, look, it's something that's important to me.
Those first internationals then, say the Hungary game in Dublin, where do you watch that?
I was there. I went to the game. They gave me a couple of days off so I could fly back and watch it. What was that experience like? I loved it, to be honest. I loved sitting in the sand and seeing the game from everyone else's perspective. And then we scored late in the game as well. It was good.
Amazing. And obviously the Armenia result isn't a great one. You are back for the Portugal away game. That's your first game back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Did you feel something different about that Ireland camp?
Because I remember before the Hungary game, Paddy McCarthy was saying that this team is now starting to really feel like it's going to go places and we think we're going to do something special. And there was a few eyebrows raised around that comment, particularly so after the first Armenia results. And then after November, everybody's like, this is what Paddy McCarthy was talking about all along.
Did you feel that same thing before the Portugal away game?
I think we felt it more after the game because it took 94 minutes for one of the best teams in the world to score against us. I don't think we played great in that game, we defended really well but with the ball we didn't create anything. So I think after that game it was more of a
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