It may go without saying but Darren Randolph laughs off the suggestion that some of Ireland’s management types worry he might be a little laid-back. Well, what else would he do?
Randolph’s manner is certainly relaxed but the 29-year-old recalls his father, the former professional basketball player, Ed, having to cultivate a certain calmness into him on court as a youngster.
These days, it appears to come naturally but back then, he says, he had a short fuse and it took time for his quiet spoken Tallahassee-born dad to instil what the goalkeeper now sees as precious wisdom in him.
“Football is full of highs and lows,” he says now of his outlook. “Everyone has a different temperament to deal with things. I could quite easily be the one running around screaming and shouting but it’s not my character.
“I deal with things how I deal with things and what might work for me might not work for someone else. Some people might like it; some people might not like it. It’s down to the individual or the people, you know? That’s kind of how I am.”
How he is, should not be mistaken for a lack of ambition or focus though. Having chosen to play soccer over basketball and Ireland over the United States, Randolph found himself struggling to make his breakthrough in England's lower leagues and took the time to devise a long-term strategy.
"Yeah," he says, "it was a plan when I first went to Scotland to go and get some games and try get back down to the Championship to play and then eventually try and get into the Premier League. It's taken a while but I've managed to get there."
Unexpected debut
Along the way, he has had some good fortune on the international front with Shay Given’s injury against Germany and David Forde’s difficulties at Millwall paving the way to an unexpected competitive debut against the World Champions last October. The Wicklow man took it in his stride although perhaps, he jokes, because it was so unexpected. “I could have had a few days to think about it,” he says, “and it could have gone very differently”.
At West Ham, he has had to settle to the role of number two but he has seen some action and towards the end of the English league season, he was the only one of the four goalkeepers in contention for Martin O’Neill’s squad who was absolutely sure to travel.
“Yeah, I’d like to think with the cup run and the league games I’ve had and then the games with Ireland that it’s enough game time in the season,” he says.
“I was quite lucky how the international and cup games kind of came one after the other, or within a week of each other at least. I didn’t have to go five or six months without a game.”
Forde did, and paid the price while Rob Elliot was even more unlucky, suffering a serious injury just as he seemed to establish himself at international level. Randolph has tried to be supportive as both men look to cope with their disappointments.
Surgery
“I went to meet him [Elliot] a few weeks back,” he says. “He’s fine, he’s just finished one surgery and going to see a surgeon about another surgery about something else. I think he’s having an operation on a muscle here [points towards thigh] so he’s just getting that done.
“He’s as positive as he can be. He’s sorting out all the little issues he had with his body. So he’ll be back and he should be as good as new.”
As for Forde this week, he says: “he wasn’t going around in a mood or anything. He was disappointed but we sat around after and had a chat and it wasn’t even a football chat, it was just a normal chat in general and he wished everyone good luck. That summarises what sort of character he is.
“He hasn’t spoken out of turn or thrown a tantrum in any kind of way with anyone. He’s been very supportive the whole way through.”
Ireland go on without either man now and Keiren Westwood comes into the equation, along with Shay Given, for the goalkeeper's position in France. Having mapped his way to this point, however, and learned some important life lessons along the way, Randolph is unlikely to be all that laid-back about letting either man displace him now.
