James McClean’s Derry City swansong peters out to a disappointing final note

This was not the ending for which everyone was supposed to be waiting.

James McClean’s return to Derry City was supposed to precipitate the end of the club’s long wait for a first league title since 1997. But there was no title victory. Nor was there even the hint of a title challenge. Instead, the season quickly descended into rancour and the only ending fans have been waiting for has been that of McClean’s career at his hometown club.

That ending was confirmed in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that announced McClean and the club had come to an agreement to terminate his contract. The club will pay McClean a settlement, which has not been disclosed. The 37-year-old won’t retire immediately, but will take stock and assess his options.

[ Derry City terminate James McClean’s contract by mutual consentOpens in new window ]

That an agreement has been reached in advance of the FAI Cup final is likely not a coincidence, as Derry will not have wanted this saga to dominate next week’s media day. McClean won’t be attending the game, instead taking his son to Old Trafford to watch Manchester United play Aston Villa. What a jarring coda to a wretched year.

It began with Derry’s billionaire owner Philip O’Doherty talking with clarity and ambition: the club’s aim was to win the league and then to win it again next year. McClean’s return home was supposed to catalyse these dreams.

But Derry won just two of their first 11 league games and by the middle of June some Derry players were talking about the need to roll up their sleeves to ward off relegation. This was a miserable return on investment and ambition, and the atmosphere around the club unsurprisingly soured.

McClean, recast as a central midfielder, struggled with the rest of his team-mates. There was a measure of mitigation for this, however, with a persistent hip injury deteriorating to the point that, in April, McClean said he may need to retire. A specialist delivered better news for him a week later, saying he could play on with an injection.

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Never a man to mask unhappy feelings, McClean’s discontent at Derry grew as the summer passed. He used a punditry appearance on RTÉ’s World Cup coverage in June to hint at broken promises, and then couldn’t bite his tongue following a straight-sets exit from the qualifying rounds of the Europa and Conference Leagues. “If you watch the games, the lads aren’t losing these games based on lack of effort, so clearly there is an issue somewhere,” said McClean.

This was an unsubtle jab at manager Tiernan Lynch, who parted company with Derry less than a week later. McClean’s impulsive, abrasive use of social media has consistently exacerbated situations across his career, and this proved to be another.

Relations between McClean and O’Doherty broke down. The club tried to rip up McClean’s deal in August for the price of six months’ pay, citing a clause in the standard player contract while arguing McClean’s hip injury had left him “permanently incapacitated”. McClean rejected this, and a bitter dispute took hold.

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While McClean insisted he was available for selection, interim manager Mark Connolly didn’t pick him. It felt as if McClean’s name appeared on club statements more often than team sheets. After his comments in a newspaper interview about how he felt therapy is a “weakness” were stripped of context and went viral, Derry issued a statement distancing themselves from McClean.

There were ways for the club to highlight the importance of seeking support for mental health issues without drawing McClean’s name directly into the statement. Regardless of their intention, naming him in the statement gave the impression of subordinating a worthy and important subject to the club’s ongoing dispute with their player.

There is likely a sense of relief on both sides that they have negotiated an end to this miserable episode. There should be sadness too.

“It’s a small place,” said McClean about Derry on the Indo Sport podcast on Tuesday. “People have a lot of opinions and it’s very easy to judge before you know what you’re judging because a lot goes on behind closed doors that people aren’t privy to. But they will cast their judgment regardless. It’s sad when people turn on you, your own, so quickly.”

McClean has spent virtually all of his career as an unflinching ambassador for Creggan and for Derry, to the point that few Irish sports people across this century have been so viscerally and easily connected with the place from which they hail. But now, in the winter of his career, McClean has returned home as a rich man left to bitterly lament the squinting windows of small-town Ireland. What a sad, sad tale.