Notts County defender Richard Brindley says his recent international call-up came as a "surprise" and an "honour".
Brindley has been named in a 16-man England C squad for a match against Wales C at Caernarfon Town on Wednesday, March 30. Magpies teammate Cal Roberts was also called up by manager Paul Fairclough, while Kyle Wootton and Matt Palmer made the contingency squad.
The England C team is selected from players of all ages who play at National League level or below. Brindley is looking forward to the prospect of representing his country, and revealed how Notts head coach Ian Burchnall broke the news of his call-up.
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"The gaffer texted me on the Sunday morning," said the 28-year-old. "I had a little lay-in and got up about 9am. I could see a text from the gaffer at 8am.
"He said: 'Morning Brinds, didn't want to wake you, thought you'd still be asleep, but I've got some good news for you. You've got a call-up from the England C team! Congrats and that's just reward for all your hard work.'
"It was a nice little text to wake up to, and overall a nice surprise. It's an honour and something that I'm obviously proud of, and the club are proud of. I really appreciate the recognition and I'm looking forward to showcasing myself on that stage."
Brindley started out at hometown club Norwich City before going on to have spells with the likes of Chesterfield, Rotherham United, Colchester, Barnet and Bromley. He has been at Meadow Lane since 2019. On the international front, he explained how things could have gone differently.
"I can represent Grenada or Egypt and there have been a few moments in my career where I was close to doing that but it just didn't feel like it was the right time," he said. "But I've always wanted to be in an international team and play in that different type of game, you could say, and a different type of challenge, so I'm really looking forward to that."
Brindley added: "It's an interesting one. I've been in this league for a couple of seasons now and I didn't really know too much about how it all worked with the England C team. I think there were a couple of years where it was under-23s.
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"So it's an honour to be put in, I guess, the category of the best players in this league. There are some really, really talented boys in the squad and some lads, from what I've played against, being by far the best players in this league. I'm happy to be a part of that."
Brindley has been managing an Achilles problem, which saw him sit out the FA Trophy quarter-final defeat to Wrexham on Friday night. "I'm getting there," he said. "It has improved, slowly but surely.
"It was just a precaution, really. We looked at it and said I've played a lot of games. So it was just trying to minimise the risk of maybe missing one or two (matches). So just settling it down for a week helps massively in terms of finishing off the season, rather than playing on it, making it more irritated and missing out more."
England C squad
Scott Loach - Chesterfield
Ryan Boot - Solihull Moors
Richard Brindley - Notts County
Ash Palmer - Stockport County
Aaron Hayden - Wrexham
Ben Tozer - Wrexham
Nathan Ralph - Southend United
Ryan Croasdale - Stockport County
Will Collar - Stockport County
Matt Robinson - Dagenham & Redbridge
Joe Sbarra - Solihull Moors
Callum Roberts - Notts County
Michael Cheek - Bromley
Paul Mullin - Wrexham
Ephron Mason-Clark - Barnet
Liam Mandeville - Chesterfield
