General
- Thursday November 22nd, 2012 @ 21:56
SHANE GLAD TO BE BACK
For new Saint Patrick's Athletic midfielder Shane McFaul, once manager Liam Buckley gave him the opportunity to re-join the club his supported as a child, it was a chance he just could not refuse.
“Yeah I'm absolutely thrilled to be home and having supported the club
as a kid, I'm so happy. The last time at the club I had an up and down time,” he told stpatsfc.com.
“I had a good European campaign in 2010 and then I was in and out of the team for the league, so now I'm just really looking forward to getting stuck into things.”
McFaul returns to Ireland following a year spent playing in the top flight of Finnish football with FC Haka where he made 27 appearances for the club in all competitions, though his spell ended on a sour note as the club suffered relegation on the final day of the season.
Despite this however, McFaul has no regrets about the experience, even admitting that the possibility of continuing his career in Scandanavia was an option.
“I had an opportunity to go back as three Finnish clubs expressed an interest in me as well as possibly one Norweigan club, but there was only one team I really wanted to come back and play for and that was St Pats.”
“I did love the experience over there. All the games were like European games that we would experience over here in UEFA competition, every game was played like that.
It was a hugely enjoyable experience, I loved everything about it but just unfortunately we didn't get the results to stay up.”
Looking ahead to the 2013 season though, McFaul admitted to stpatsfc.com that he was looking forward to linking up with his new teammates, some of whom he has already played with in his previous spell with Pats and both UCD and Sporting Fingal, while the midfielder also singled out the support of the Saints' fans since re-signing for the club.
“Yeah all the lads Liam has re-signed are really talented players so
I'm really looking forward to it.
It'll be great to be back playing with some of the lads again, especially the likes of Ger O'Brien who I look up to,” the 26 year old revealed.
“If you look at the likes of Conan Byrne and Kenny Browne who I played
with at Fingal, someone that I always thought was a top class player
like Killian Brennan, and then the rest of the squad who I haven't
played with yet, it should be great.”
“But one of the things since I signed back with the club is the support I've received, messages online and elsewhere, it has just been unbelievable.
I'm literally overwhelmed with the amount of messages of goodwill, as it just goes to show that the Pats fans are the best in Ireland.
I'm just looking forward now to repaying that faith and hopefully we're going to win things next season.”
