Extratime Interview: James Chambers
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
James Chambers knows how to treat a journalist. On time, affable and
breezy, he’s delighted to meet you. “I’m in no rush,” he quickly
confirms at a Dublin hotel. No coffee, not even tea. Straight in.
A rainy night in Modena: “That was the highlight of my career. It was something dreams are made of. I mean you see these players on the telly and then you go out and play against them and you think ‘Whoa!’. They are as good as they look and they’re a million miles ahead of us but, it was just great to play against them and be on the same park as them.”
“Them”, of course being the Old Lady of Juventus. “I remember trying to play a ball and it got stuck in the water and it was hard [to play in those conditions]. But then you have boys like Diego who were taking the piss like, flicking the ball out of the water like it’s beach soccer and you’re just there trying to kick the ball through the water,” chuckles Chambers. “ And you think back and go ‘Oh I must have looked like a right plonker doing that,’ but that was just the way it was.”
The way it was back on that August night in Northern Italy was a long way from the way things were for him a mere 18 months previously. The 23-year-old Baldoyle native had spent his youth honing his skills at Shelbourne, but finding himself out of favour at Tolka Park he opted for a change in January 2009.
Close friend Rene Gilmartin was keeping goal for Walsall at the time and prompted the then manager Jimmy Mullen to let Chambers train with the squad with a view to signing him if he impressed. Having gotten two days training in after his arrival from Dublin, Chambers hopes of cross channel football were complicated from the outset. “I was just at a loose end and I said I’d go over training and he [Gilmartin] had arranged for me to go and train for a few days. So I was there for a couple of days and then the manager got sacked and everything was going wrong at the time, so I just decided I needed to play games at that stage and I signed for Conference North team Solihull."
Shamrock Rovers midfielder James Chambers (Image by Jody Moylan)
Staying in Gilmartin’s digs in Walsall he was getting paid £200 per
week from Solihull. “It wasn’t much but it was enough,” says Chambers. “ You’re waiting
for your chance. I was waiting for Walsall to appoint a new manager. I
needed to play games to keep myself ticking over…but I wasn’t really
enjoying it, I was just waiting for something to happen and then once
Chris Hutchens came in [as Walsall’s new manager] and said he wasn’t
interested I just said ‘That’s fair enough’ and I decided to pack my
bags and leave”.
Not knowing where his future lay, Chambers came back to Ireland on the look out for any sign of first team football. With Drogheda Utd having just emerged from examinership and newly appointed manager Alan Matthews at the helm, Chambers saw a chance to make a contribution to a Boynesiders’ outfit in huge transition.
“I got in touch with Alan when I came back and he said I was more than welcome to come up and train and see how things went. “He had an awful lot of players up there. I remember I went up on the first night, and I’d know a lot of the lads and there was a lot of us there. I think there was about 30 of us at training on my first evening.
"I was training for a couple of nights and Alan said he’d offer me a contract so I was delighted with that. You know, it was a chance, considering where I’d been,” says Chambers with the air of a man who is happy with the way things eventually turned out.
Coming in with the likes of Conor Kenna, Alan McNally and Paul Crowley and racking up 33 first team appearances with a seven goal return, Chambers feels his year with Drogs was time well spent despite a season struggling to avoid the drop.
“I played an awful lot of first team football and I felt I grew up a little bit as well. It obviously improved my game. There was an awful lot of players there as well who just wanted to play….for a group of lads just thrown together with everybody throwing the book at us saying we were going down it was a great season for us, and personally for myself I really enjoyed it.”
Indeed Chambers’ last game in a Drogheda shirt came in their two-nil victory over Bray in last November’s relegation play-offs. He sent the United Park crowd into a frenzy that night with the opening goal of a match that saw a subsequent pitch invasion from the Drogs’ faithful. His season at the coal face in Louth had got heads turning and almost immediately Michael O’Neill was swooping for the midfielder. It was a big step up, but Chambers had little doubt about his capabilities.
“I have confidence in my own ability but obviously when you come to a club like Rovers who are challenging for the league and you’re essentially a relegation player you know the players that are here are a ridiculous standard.”
He agrees there is an excitement around Tallaght, with so much up for grabs and at stake right now, but contests the idea that there is any undue pressure on the squad to succeed. “I wouldn’t say pressure. Obviously it’s a massive club, and they’ve gone so long without a trophy. There’s an expectation, I wouldn’t say pressure, I’d say it’s more expectation.” While expectations are certainly high, Hoops’ fans have had to endure a few hairy moments during the current campaign, none more so than the recent 5-1 drubbing at Oriel Park. Chambers thinks the result has spurred them on more than anything else.
“We went up there and we know ourselves we didn’t perform, we just didn’t play. We didn’t adapt to the conditions in the first half well enough. Maybe it’s given us a kick up the backside. We knew we had to come out and rectify the mistakes and we did that against Galway [in the 6-0 win] in the Cup.” So what about Bohemians? “Lets talk about Bohs next week at Dalymount.” Chambers though, is having none of it.
“Everyone’s just focused on [the next game], I know it’s a cliché,” he says with a grin. But the next game like Friday against UCD. That’s just all we’re focused on…if you have one eye on the following game you don’t have your two eyes on the next one.”
And where then? After finally arriving on the biggest domestic stage and having started more games for the table toppers this term than anyone bar Alan Mannus and Dan Murray, Chambers wants to get the most out of his career, wherever it takes him. “I want to win trophies, and you want to be involved in big European nights so I want to play at the highest level possible. Whether that is Rovers, whether that is the Leinster Senior League, whether that is England, I don’t know where it’s going to be. I just want to play at the highest level I can. At the moment I’m just enjoying my football and long may that continue. We’ll see where it leads me.”
A rainy night in Modena: “That was the highlight of my career. It was something dreams are made of. I mean you see these players on the telly and then you go out and play against them and you think ‘Whoa!’. They are as good as they look and they’re a million miles ahead of us but, it was just great to play against them and be on the same park as them.”
“Them”, of course being the Old Lady of Juventus. “I remember trying to play a ball and it got stuck in the water and it was hard [to play in those conditions]. But then you have boys like Diego who were taking the piss like, flicking the ball out of the water like it’s beach soccer and you’re just there trying to kick the ball through the water,” chuckles Chambers. “ And you think back and go ‘Oh I must have looked like a right plonker doing that,’ but that was just the way it was.”
The way it was back on that August night in Northern Italy was a long way from the way things were for him a mere 18 months previously. The 23-year-old Baldoyle native had spent his youth honing his skills at Shelbourne, but finding himself out of favour at Tolka Park he opted for a change in January 2009.
Close friend Rene Gilmartin was keeping goal for Walsall at the time and prompted the then manager Jimmy Mullen to let Chambers train with the squad with a view to signing him if he impressed. Having gotten two days training in after his arrival from Dublin, Chambers hopes of cross channel football were complicated from the outset. “I was just at a loose end and I said I’d go over training and he [Gilmartin] had arranged for me to go and train for a few days. So I was there for a couple of days and then the manager got sacked and everything was going wrong at the time, so I just decided I needed to play games at that stage and I signed for Conference North team Solihull."
Not knowing where his future lay, Chambers came back to Ireland on the look out for any sign of first team football. With Drogheda Utd having just emerged from examinership and newly appointed manager Alan Matthews at the helm, Chambers saw a chance to make a contribution to a Boynesiders’ outfit in huge transition.
“I got in touch with Alan when I came back and he said I was more than welcome to come up and train and see how things went. “He had an awful lot of players up there. I remember I went up on the first night, and I’d know a lot of the lads and there was a lot of us there. I think there was about 30 of us at training on my first evening.
"I was training for a couple of nights and Alan said he’d offer me a contract so I was delighted with that. You know, it was a chance, considering where I’d been,” says Chambers with the air of a man who is happy with the way things eventually turned out.
Coming in with the likes of Conor Kenna, Alan McNally and Paul Crowley and racking up 33 first team appearances with a seven goal return, Chambers feels his year with Drogs was time well spent despite a season struggling to avoid the drop.
“I played an awful lot of first team football and I felt I grew up a little bit as well. It obviously improved my game. There was an awful lot of players there as well who just wanted to play….for a group of lads just thrown together with everybody throwing the book at us saying we were going down it was a great season for us, and personally for myself I really enjoyed it.”
Indeed Chambers’ last game in a Drogheda shirt came in their two-nil victory over Bray in last November’s relegation play-offs. He sent the United Park crowd into a frenzy that night with the opening goal of a match that saw a subsequent pitch invasion from the Drogs’ faithful. His season at the coal face in Louth had got heads turning and almost immediately Michael O’Neill was swooping for the midfielder. It was a big step up, but Chambers had little doubt about his capabilities.
“I have confidence in my own ability but obviously when you come to a club like Rovers who are challenging for the league and you’re essentially a relegation player you know the players that are here are a ridiculous standard.”
He agrees there is an excitement around Tallaght, with so much up for grabs and at stake right now, but contests the idea that there is any undue pressure on the squad to succeed. “I wouldn’t say pressure. Obviously it’s a massive club, and they’ve gone so long without a trophy. There’s an expectation, I wouldn’t say pressure, I’d say it’s more expectation.” While expectations are certainly high, Hoops’ fans have had to endure a few hairy moments during the current campaign, none more so than the recent 5-1 drubbing at Oriel Park. Chambers thinks the result has spurred them on more than anything else.
“We went up there and we know ourselves we didn’t perform, we just didn’t play. We didn’t adapt to the conditions in the first half well enough. Maybe it’s given us a kick up the backside. We knew we had to come out and rectify the mistakes and we did that against Galway [in the 6-0 win] in the Cup.” So what about Bohemians? “Lets talk about Bohs next week at Dalymount.” Chambers though, is having none of it.
“Everyone’s just focused on [the next game], I know it’s a cliché,” he says with a grin. But the next game like Friday against UCD. That’s just all we’re focused on…if you have one eye on the following game you don’t have your two eyes on the next one.”
And where then? After finally arriving on the biggest domestic stage and having started more games for the table toppers this term than anyone bar Alan Mannus and Dan Murray, Chambers wants to get the most out of his career, wherever it takes him. “I want to win trophies, and you want to be involved in big European nights so I want to play at the highest level possible. Whether that is Rovers, whether that is the Leinster Senior League, whether that is England, I don’t know where it’s going to be. I just want to play at the highest level I can. At the moment I’m just enjoying my football and long may that continue. We’ll see where it leads me.”
