Joe Murphy will roll out the welcome mat at Tranmere Rovers this weekend, when a group of Irish teenagers visit the League Two side.
The youngsters are part of a touring Stella Maris Under-16 side.
Former Ireland goalkeeper Murphy started out at the Drumcondra club before his first spell at Prenton Park under legendary striker John Aldridge.
READ MORE: Ireland star Andrew Omobamidele linked with sensational €20 million move to AC Milan
Now aged 41 and well into his second stint at Tranmere, Murphy is a link to an earlier bond between the Merseyside-based club and Ireland.
Stella Maris, along with recent visitors St Joseph’s Boys, represent an effort to resurrect those ties.
And it’s not just at schoolboy level where Tranmere are hoping to grow their green shoots.
Two members of the club’s coaching staff - international technical director Danny O’Donnell and academy coordinator Matt Hunter - were in Dublin last weekend to take in some League of Ireland fixtures.
O’Donnell, a Liverpool prospect in the Rafa Benitez era, was at Shamrock Rovers’ win over Sligo Rovers and Hunter took in the clash between Shelbourne and Cork City.
Their aim? To sell Tranmere Rovers as a club that can develop young players for a career in the upper echelons of English football.
“I suppose the reason for this trip, first and foremost, is to make people aware that we are back in the game in terms of being a pathway for Irish players,” O’Donnell said.
“It’s probably one where the club fell away a few years ago and ended up in the National League, and didn’t have the infrastructure in place to pick up that talent, nurture it and develop it.
“But since Matt and I have been at the club for the last six years it has gone from strength to strength off the pitch.
“Finally now we are in a position where we have got everything in place to get good players over, develop them and move them on.
“That’s our remit as a club, we are a development club. We look to that 18-to-21/22-year-old bracket, and to move players onto the Championship.
“Matt and I are both coaches, so we have got one foot in the development of players, but we also, thanks to the scouting network at the club, have got an eye on talent, which brings us over here.”
O’Donnell made the first-team set-up at Anfield without playing competitively, but he had a career at Crewe, Shrewsbury Town and Stockport County, among others.
Hunter was an academy prospect at Wycombe, before moving into education.
He has worked on projects for Tranmere in China, Canada and the USA.
Asked why they were turning again to Ireland, Hunter replied: “It’s something we were looking at for a while. With the focus on development, it’s the ideal time.
“And there seems to be a lot of Tranmere fans in Ireland, with the John Aldridge link.”
Aldo introduced a splash of green on Tranmere Rovers’ jersey while he was manager between 1996 and 2001.
The legendary Ireland striker, who joined the club as a player in 1991, guided the club to the 2000 League Cup final, where they lost to Martin O’Neill’s Leicester City.
Green remains a staple of the Tranmere kit, with O’Donnell explaining: “The green on the kit, that’s actually a nod to the players and the history.
“That was Aldo’s decision, that was his thing, he wanted a slice of green on the kit. So ever since then we’ve had it.”
O’Donnell added that Tranmere’s link with the nearby John Moores University had given the club an opportunity to offer more than just a footballing education.
“I did a degree in sports science at John Moores, which is one of the top sports science universities in the world. It’s right on our doorstep,” he said.
“So when it comes to developing players and doing all the nutrition, the psychology, all the wraparound care that the players need, we are as good as anyone because of that university link.”
He continued: “We understand where we are on the football pyramid and we understand what we are trying to do better as a club.
“We are not the first club to the party and we are not the biggest club at the party.
“The big English clubs will want to cherry pick the best young players, that is always going to happen. But I think the general level in Ireland is better and with that you miss some talent.
“You see it all the time. There are some unbelievable players that go under the radar or are missed because of the big boys cherry picking and all that kind of stuff.
“Steph Negru (who moved from Shelbourne to Oxford United) is a prime example. He came over, blew our socks off in training and he is a great kid. We wanted to sign him.
“He went right through the system being missed. I know Covid didn’t help him, but you get these anomalies.
“That’s where we are going to be operating, those gems that have been missed.
“Not necessarily the younger ones that were screaming out at younger age levels, because they probably would have gone to Premier League academies, but the lads who might not stand-out.”
Tranmere will close out their 2022/23 campaign on Monday with the visit of Northampton - and a win could see them finish 10th in League Two.
The young Stella Maris players will be guests of honour at the game.
Tranmere will finish this season with Lee O’Connor and Murphy in their first-team squad - and both will be there next season, with Murphy set to double up again as a player/goalkeeper coach.
If O’Donnell and Hunter get their way, there could be a few more Irish faces at Prenton Park by the start of pre-season training.
