Stephen Brennan still remembers the stabbing pain in his hamstring.
A young man on the promise of a Newcastle United first-team debut, he recalls the moment that changed the course of his life forever.
“I remember it very clearly,” Brennan, a right-back, says. “John Carver (who would have three spells as caretaker manager) was our coach at the time in the reserves.
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“He said, ‘The gaffer (Bobby Robson) was thinking about putting you in this weekend, but we’re going to hold off for another week or two’.
“And that week or two was when I tore my hamstring.
“We played Everton, I felt a tweak and I came off. I trained the next day and it felt okay.
“We were playing Manchester United in St James’ Park in the next game. I did a fitness test and got through it no problem.
“Darren Fletcher was playing for United’s reserves, they had a really strong team, and I did an overlap and tore it. It was like someone sticking a knife into me, it was that bad.
“I remember very vividly, Bobby Robson came in afterwards and said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll play out there one day, son, you’ll play out there one day’.
“He had high regard for me and I was really pushing for it to happen, but that injury was the start of it for me.”
It was late 2003 and the injury that also ruled Brennan out of Ireland’s Under-20 World Cup campaign in the UAE was followed by another, and then another.
“When I came back after that, I dislocated my shoulder. I came back from that and I tore my quad,” he recalls.
“In between all that, Stephen Taylor got into the first-team at right-back and the rest is history.
“I’d signed a two-and-a-half-year deal and I’d spent nearly 18 months on the sidelines.
“Bobby Robson was going to extend my contract by a year, but he got sacked, Graeme Souness came in and I just wasn’t the player I was 18 months earlier.
“He released me and I came back to Ireland.”
Brennan was a teenager when he signed for Newcastle, shortly before they last featured in a major cup final.
That he retired just over a decade ago - after spells with Shelbourne, St Patrick’s Athletic and Bray Wanderers - illustrates how long Geordie fans have had to wait for another chance at silverware.
Just as it was in their 2-0 1999 FA Cup final defeat, Manchester United once again stand between Newcastle and a first major trophy in over 50 years.
Brennan - a Red Devils fan - was handed two tickets for the Wembley clash in ‘99.
“I was sitting in the Newcastle end so I didn’t cheer the goals,” he told Starsport.
“I was on WhatsApp with some of my friends just there and they were asking me who I’d be supporting this time. I’ll be supporting Newcastle.”
Having lived in digs with fellow Irishman Joe Kendrick, hosted by a Newcastle-mad family, he knows what the trip to Wembley later this month will mean to the city.
“There were three season ticket holders; a mam, dad and a son, and the mam and dad were season ticket holders since they were kids,” he says.
“It was a great football family, Phil and Ann Leonard and their son Patrick, who is a professional poker player now, earning millions and millions.
"They went to every single home game and listened to every away game on the radio. It was family, football and work for them.
“It’s very hard to understand just what the club means to people until you go and live with them.”
Despite how it ended, Brennan talks about his time at Newcastle with great fondness.
“I trialled under Kenny Dalglish, I signed under Ruud Gullit, I was there predominantly under Bobby Robson and I was released under Graeme Souness,” he recalls.
“I was very close, really close to playing for the first-team. Out of my initial youth team, I was the only one to sign an additional contract.
“They say your second contract is the hardest to get. I was the only one to get the second contract.
“Is there any bitterness or anger? Absolutely none. The way I look at it is, I got to a certain level and there are not an awful lot of people who can get to that level.
“Who can say they played against Roy Keane at Old Trafford?
“Who can say they played against World Cup winners for their national team, players like Fernando Torres, Philipp Lam and Per Mertesacker?
“Who can say they played with Alan Shearer, one of the best strikers England has ever seen, or Shay Given, one of the best Irish goalkeepers ever?
“Some of the players I’ve played with and against, that’s every boy’s dream.
“I feel very lucky and privileged. I don’t hold grudges.
“Maybe there’s one thing I might change… if I could rewind back to when John Carver said they’d hold off for a week or two, I might say, ‘No, no, I’m ready, put me in now’.
“But that doesn’t keep me up all night, thinking, ‘I should have done that 20 years ago’.
“I haven’t got one single regret.”
It doesn’t bother him that he missed out on a decade or more of Premier League wages, or that he had to get a regular job to help pay the mortgage.
Brennan is very content in his role as a Customer Business Manager with Molson Coors.
He hasn’t left football behind either. Right now he is looking to build a squad for Bray Wanderers/Greystones’ women’s Under-19 side, ahead of the 2023 season.
“I have got a lot to be thankful for,” he says, “and now that I’m managing the women’s team, I have an opportunity to give back to the game.
“I got involved around this time last year. I was manager of a local football club in Shankill called SVS FC.
“Out of the blue, Andy O’Hara, Greystones chairman, contacted me about an opportunity, an amalgamation between Bray Wanderers and Greystones.
“He asked if I would be interested in coming in and managing.
“The trajectory of the women’s game is growing at a rate of knots, and rightly so, so why not get involved?
“They are brilliant girls and what I can see is that the league itself is really good. The talent within the league is quite extraordinary.”
Brennan believes that Ireland’s upcoming World Cup campaign will inspire more girls to get involved.
“You have 16 or 17-year-old girls now thinking, I can become a professional footballer and make a career for myself in the game,” he says.
“I’ve got a great coaching staff and we’ve got great facilities, and there is an opportunity there for girls who want to play.
“This is the highest level they can play at in this country, where they are very close to first-team football or international football or to college football.
“I hope girls and mams and dads see that this is a great opportunity.
“I want them to come down to us. We are a small enough club that is going to get bigger, that has the right people and foundation.
“I’m saying, come down, have a trial, have a look at our set-up. This is what I’ve experienced in football and this is the experience I want to pass on.
“Look at what’s happening this summer with Ireland going to the World Cup - that is not a million miles away from where we are.
“So many of our senior internationals have played here in Ireland in the last five years.
“I see two beacons in Ellen Molloy and Abbie Larkin, who were playing in the Under-19 National League last year or the year before, and now they are possibly going to the World Cup.
“It is really close to these girls if they have dedication, ambition and talent.”
Brennan has had mums and dads get in touch with him on social media, and via the Bray Wanderers website.
“We train Tuesday and Thursday, 7pm to 8.30 in Greystones. Our season starts in five weeks and I need players.”
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