Selfless striker is still hanging tough
IT’S not exactly commonplace for Premier League footballers to flag down supporters and ask them nicely for a photo, but the Merseyside roots of Jon Walters run deep.
Dipped in Everton blue as a kid, Walters recently spied Speedo Mick, on a fund-raising walk from Buckingham Palace to Merseyside.
He pulled in, posed for a snap and passed over £50 to the renowned Everton fan, Mick Cullen, who attends all games — home and away — in blue swimming togs and blue swim cap.
Walters has never lost his common touch and is familiar with Speedo Mick’s ceaseless work to improve the lives of stricken kids through the Charlie Chance Foundation.
As one of his daughters, Clarissa, was born with gastroschisis, Walters is aware of the support that sick children need.
The kindness of the Stoke City striker off the pitch contrasts with his toughness on it.
When he arrived at Chester City in the summer of 2006, he kept it simple for fans of the club then in the fourth tier of English football. ‘I will make runs and put in loads of hard work,’ said Walters.
He didn’t renege either and 11 years on, he’s still delivering.
Come Sunday, Walters will again combine selflessness with endeavour as he leads the Republic of Ireland attack in the biggest World Cup encounter to hit Dublin since France were in town for an ill-fated play-off in 2009.
Marked absent from training at Wednesday’s opening session at the Aviva Stadium, as he rested his knee, Walters’ non-appearance sparked off alarms.
Thankfully, the iron horse from the Wirral is expected back in harness at Abbotstown today to allay fears of his availability.
Arguably, he is the one player, above all others, whom manager Martin O’Neill would be most reluctant to lose for an international of this significance.
It’s not that Walters is faster than Shane Long, or has more goals in him than Robbie Keane, while he may not be as accomplished in the air as Daryl Murphy either, but he’s a self-sacrificing character every team wants in the trenches.
For Walters, the team has always come first, from the time he was scrapping around the lower leagues for the likes of Crewe, Scunthorpe, Wrexham, and Chester, to the Premier League stage with Stoke City.
For Ireland supporters of a certain vintage, Walters is not dissimilar to the late Ray Treacy who scored five goals in his 42 appearances but courageously foraged for others, as Don Givens can confirm.
Treacy used to say he was at his most effective when the muck and bullets were flying around, and Walters has similar DNA.
His team-mates know Walters will show for every ball, no matter how much he is gasping for a breather, or how fierce the challenges are from his markers.
To paraphrase the song from Chumbawumba, he gets knocked down, he gets up again; you’re never gonna keep him down.
Defenders hate him as he keeps taking the hits and comes back for more.
In Vienna last November, as visiting fans celebrated at the final whistle after a precious 1-0 win, an exhausted Walters tottered about the Prater Stadium on legs like jelly. He looked like he needed oxygen after putting in a monster shift without any respite.
It was another example of Walters’ unrelenting commitment to the cause, which was also evident in the summer of 2014 when he hooked up with the squad in the US despite a painful bout of migraine.
He did so because he’d given O’Neill his word he would travel and, in return, O’Neill made him captain against Portugal.
At 33, Walters has become indispensable to Ireland and O’Neill was hugely relieved that Walters didn’t call time on his green jersey heroics after the Euro 2016 finals.
Perhaps the player feels he has unfinished business at a major tournament after a foot injury restricted him to less than 90 minutes action in France.
He deserved longer on the battlefield for he had done as much as anyone to drag Ireland over the line, chipping in with vital goals against Scotland and Georgia in the qualifiers, before a priceless double in the play-off with Bosnia & Herzegovina.
After scoring just once in his first 13 international appearances, and four times in his first 24, he has crept up to 13 goals in 48, and is now level with Gerry Daly in joint 10th on the all-time Irish list. But for a goal-gaping blooper last Sunday against Uruguay, not long after he opened the scoring, he should be on 14 goals, level with Kevin Doyle.
Scrutiny of his strikes indicates a clear preference for home terrain. No less than 10 of his 13 goals have come in Dublin, nine during his time under O’Neill.
Walters’ return is all the more commendable because he is not an out-and-out striker. Under O’Neill, he has been deployed on the right flank, as an up and down midfielder, more often than in attack.
Of his 25 appearances under O’Neill, Walters has started up front just seven times.
This past season, his name appeared infrequently on the Stoke City starting XI as he slipped behind Marko Arnautovic — the Austria star striker suspended for Sunday — in the pecking order.
Worryingly, a couple of clean-up procedures for his knee were also required which restricted Walters to just 447 minutes of Premier League action since January 3.
It’s not ideal preparation for a huge World Cup qualifier but he’s not the type to grumble.
Former Stoke City manager Tony Pulis, who can spot the difference between a grafter and a shirker in the half-light, once observed of Walters, ‘He gives everything. He never stops.’
Only, if he sees Speedo Mick.