"You need to have the quality, the right attitude, be very determined. You need to be prepared to do the extra work. You can have vision, the ability to pass, but without hard work you're no use."
Joe McAree was setting out what's needed for a young footballer to make it over in England - but he could equally have been describing his own approach to life.
His ambition and drive have worked wonders in Dungannon.
Forget 'rags to riches' - the young footballers who come through Dungannon United Youth benefit from brilliant facilities.
Fittingly, the stadium at which they train and play is named after the guiding genius behind it, Joe McAree.
Better still, although the whole set-up is a tribute to his phenomenal work over the decades in the Tyrone town, Joe is still alive and kicking, still full of energy and enthusiasm at the age of 77.
There's not an ounce of begrudgery either at how well they're treated, despite him starting out at a country primary school with no toilets, and managing Dungannon Swifts on a 'mud-heap' of pitch, with his players having to wear the same darned socks for two seasons.
Instead, there's pride and delight at the players he's helped develop, helped progress to big clubs like Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. And Everton.
Joe McAree is an absolute diamond.
It's the second stadium that McAree has effectively built, having for years been 'Mr Dungannon Swifts'.
'Mrs Dungannon Swifts', now 'Mrs Dungannon United Youth', must also be mentioned: his wife Carol. If behind every great man is a great woman, then it's obvious why Joe McAree has achieved so much.
Joe McAree MBE, to be precise - awarded that honour in 2013 for his services to (association) football.
Yet his stadium also hosts Gaelic games - camogie, football, and hurling. That's not surprising when you know Joe, nor when you learn of his background.
Humble beginnings
Born 1945, he's actually a county Armagh man, from outside Killylea, the townland of Manooney.
"A house in the country, a few pigs, a cow, turkeys, ducks, geese at Christmas, that type of thing. We weren't farmers, bits and pieces. My da worked in the Ministry, punching cattle coming across the border. Six pounds a week. My mum flat out running the house.
One of four children, with brother Robert, and sisters Hilary, Ann [who has passed away].
The boys started out at Manooney PS, a Catholic school, "because it was 100 yards down the road from us, my brother and I, spent our first couple of years there. It was a school that didn't even have toilets, you went down behind the hedge, but we were very well treated and looked after.
"When Killylea County Primary opened, a new school, and we were moved to there, the principal of that Manooney school came to see my mother to make sure no one had say anything 'til us - but that was never the case."
Indeed, Joe has carried a cross-community ethos with him ever since, just another factor in Dungannon United Youth attracting players from all around, throughout Tyrone and into his native county and Derry too.
"It was a good start in life for me," he says. "There was a reunion of that school a few years ago, held in Middletown, and I was invited. It was fantastic to meet some of the boys.
"I remember meeting a man - it's desperate to say these men are now dead. He looked and said 'Joe McAree'. I said 'Eddie Sheridan'. Joe Jordan, boys I went to school with."
That's Joe Jordan, Armagh GAA chairman when the Orchard County won the All-Ireland SFC in 2002 "He lived round the road from me.
"On the wee road I lived on, the Devlins was the house to the right, the Murphys was the house to the left, and the O'Gormans was the house down beside the school."
Carol, from the other side of another divide, Caledon in Tyrone, comments: "We both came from a mixed area. My neighbours were Catholic, but you didn't think about that - they just went to a different church. That never was a thing with us."
Love of the game
Joe loved football. "In Killylea Primary School we played football every day, like all schools, and I couldn't be got home in the evenings 'til five o'clock, playing in new shoes my mother had saved to get and them mucked to the neck."
The McArees moved to Caledon when Joe was 16, which was when he first got into management.
"I got involved with Caledon football team – as usually, heavily, and ended up running the team.
"I'd a bad habit of never allowing a manager to run a team, I was always giving him advice. Always trying to make different decisions for him, telling him what he should be doing. It was the wrong thing, but I ended up running the Caledon team.
"In the Dungannon Summer League, we won the League, won the Cup, it was great."
Joe next played for Coalisland Albion, then Moygashel, both in the Dungannon Winter League: "I also played with Castle Rovers, the [Dungannon] rugby club at that time had a football team in the Summer League, some very talented players.
"Coalisland Albion played at 'the Legion', which is now a housing estate, where the [Coalisland] Rangers played as well.
"I played my first year for the Albion in the Winter League - runners-up to Moygashel. I transferred to Moygashel - and Moygashel was runners-up to Coalisland Albion."
A pattern of 'so near but yet so far' was set, but Joe McAree never gave up, on or off the pitch.
"I played right half: centre midfield, or the right of a three-man midfield. I loved to tackle. I wasn't a great player, but I was enthusiastic - my wife says I was too dirty."
"Bad tackles", confirms Carol.
Joining the Swifts
1972 was a momentous year for Joe. He got married and also became involved with the Swifts, who were elevated to the Irish League's 'B' Division.
Living on the outskirts of Caledon, but doing round the clock shift work at the Brown and Adams linen factory in Moygashel, he was "up and down the road like a rat up and down a spout. I thought it would be a big saving if got a house down there, so got a house in Moygashel."
The first day there Alan Leckey invited him to sign for Moygashel. A week later Willie Scott asked him to join the Dungannon Swifts committee.
"The late Ken McIlgorm, fantastic man, a real hard worker for Dungannon Swifts, died far too young, apparently said prior to the meeting 'It's all right bringing these people on board, but is he any good? Would he be prepared to do any work?
"Willie Scott spoke up and said 'I don't know how good or bad he is, but he took two days off his work to cut Caledon Park football pitch with a 14-inch Suffolk Colt lawnmower.'
"Ken said: 'Get that man in right away!'"
That was the best signing Dungannon Swifts ever made.
The Swifts were on the up then, but Joe McAree literally took them to another level - and their new home.
"I agreed to go on the committee provided they would let me run the Moygashel team in the Mid-Ulster Winter League as a third team. I took that on along with a number of other jobs…
"At Christmas, the late Wesley 'Beany' Steenson, a personal friend of mine, gave up the Reserve job, so I was offered it
"Henry Shepherd, [PE teacher at Dungannon Intermediate School], fantastic manager, did a fantastic job, put the Swifts on the road to the greatness they've shown over the years
"They went three years in the Mid Ulster First Division without losing a match, Geordie Scott captain at right-back. What a good fella he is, still there parking cars at the Swifts every [match] day."
That's at Stangmore Park - the home of Dungannon Swifts, thanks to Joe McAree. Even a chained, locked gate couldn't stop him.
"Whenever the Swifts got invited into the 'B' Division, they had to have a private, enclosed ground. The council wouldn't put a fence around the White City pitch because they couldn't keep the pitch for one individual team or club, rightly so, I agree with that.
"Moygashel pitch was leased to Moygashel FC from Courtauld's. I was playing for Moygashel in the Summer League, so I was asked if I'd go out with the late David Flack to speak with Jackie McMenemy, who died a couple of years ago, he was the chairman of Moygashel FC.
"I went down to Stangmore Park and climbed the rusty iron bar gate, which was locked with a chain and lock on it, because the Cowan family next door had two horses on the ground.
"Jackie told me later, if it hadn't been me who asked, they'd never have got the lease on the ground because Moygashel hated the Swifts. They allowed the Swifts to have it for that first year.
"We made an approach to Courtauld's to buy the ground, for £6,000, and Moygashel could still use it in the summer time. It worked out well. We had to start developing, get the pitch better, because it was a mud-heap."
Developing Stangmore Park
By '73 Joe was managing the Swifts first team, in the 'B' Division, but money was always tight.
"The socks were darned for two seasons, done by Mrs Malcolmson out of Moygashel, mother of Gordon and Billy. There was no such thing as getting a new pair of socks - socks were darned until they could be darned no more. If shorts were ripped, or a jersey, they were sewn. Unreal."
The ground "just grew and grew. We put the stand up, put down a sand carpet grass surface. We improved it every year."
The biggest boost was the result of Joe charming a Free Presbyterian from county Armagh.
"We thought we'd get a wee social club, the late Dick Matchett saw a building advertised for sale in Portadown.
"What was it? The Free Presbyterian Church wooden building. We went down to see it, Ken McIlgorm, Davy Flack, and myself. You could have shaved on the floor of it, it was spotless and shining.
"I asked the gentleman who was there, a Mr Haizley, 'Is there any chance you could tell me an idea of what's on this here?'
"He told me £750 - so I offered £800 to close it. He agreed. Ken McIlgorm was up on the pulpit, Davy talking to him, and Davy wrote the cheque that night.
"About six weeks later at a Swifts meeting, a letter from the Free Presbyterian church across the road was read out, saying if they'd known the purpose we'd never have been allowed to buy it and 'We will do everything in our power to stop you erecting it.'
"Ken McIlgorm stood up 'If this goes to court and we get a good Catholic judge, I think we'll get it passed'. I don't know what judge we got, but we got the licence.
"It went up two years later, in '77, stayed open for five years, and I turned over £120,000 of profit in those five years in that wooden building, which was unheard-of.
"Poor Seamus Horisk of Bass Ireland, who died of a heart attack, said to me 'Joe McAree, never in my day have I seen a building of this size turn money like that. It's a credit to you.'
"I worked every hour I was given, Carol lifted me at nights and I could hardly get out through the back door I was that tired. Kept it clean, kept it tidy, and it was bunged to the straps every night.
"We had over £100,000 to go to the new brick building, which cost £312,000. Opened in '82, Glentoran the visitors - and we beat them!," he chuckles.
Carol balancing the books
The Swifts were a model of domestic economy, thanks to the McArees, and Carol in particular.
Despite having three young children in the early Seventies, Sharon, Keith, and Rodney - who went on to become a professional footballer - Carol became the financial brains at the Swifts.
"I got involved when the Social Club opened, as Treasurer, looked after the lodgements, whatever."
While Joe fielded well-balanced teams, Carol balanced the books. There was never any tension between manager and treasurer, aka husband and wife, as Carol confirms: "He'd have always have been very much aware that we had to live within our own limits."
Even with tight purse-strings the Swifts were a 'B' Division force: "We put them onto a level with Dundela, the RUC, who had a fantastic team. We were always in the top four - bloody runners-up too many times, never won it."
Even so, they were invited into the Irish League proper in 1997 - but Joe, who'd been team boss in several spells, had been ousted as manager.
"In '97 I had words in the boardroom with people who felt I wasn't putting enough into the first team, putting too much into the Juniors, and that's why the Juniors moved to here, and that's why they're called Dungannon United Youth. They're totally separate to Dungannon Swifts.
DUY DIY
"It's Dungannon United Youth. We will still push the players through to the Swifts as best we can, from 15 years of age, for their U16 football."
The talent off the DUY production line includes Niall McGinn, Mark Hughes, Liam Donnelly, and, more recently, Conor Bradley, Sean McAllister, Aaron Donnelly, and Oisin Smyth.
Over the past quarter-century Joe has established the fabulous junior football stadium complex that bears his name - but he still managed to lift the Swifts to unprecedented heights.
"The then chairman Davy Holmes asked me to come back when they were bottom of the Championship and were going down in January 2001.
"I said: 'I certainly will - but I'll do it my way. I'll run it from the under-12s to the senior team. I will answer to no one. And I will not come to committee meetings. Yous raise the money and I'll run the team.'
"Dungannon Swifts had the best four-and-a-half years in their lifetime. We won the Championship, we won the Ulster Cup, we were fourth twice in the Premiership. The Swifts could not believe where they were, it was fantastic."
After winning the Championship in 2003, the Swifts went up to the new 16-team Irish Premier League. Tenth in their debut campaign was satisfactory, especially as Glenavon were relegated and Cliftinville had to survive a play-off.
Yet the Swifts then went fourth - and fourth again. Astonishing achievements, ending up only behind the then big guns of Glentoran, Linfield, and Portadown.
Joe McAree, quite rightly, was named Irish League Manager of the Year in 2005.
Into Europe, in the Intertoto Cup, they travelled to face Keflavik in Iceland
"That trip to Iceland was memorable, you'll never forget that," recalls Carol. "Some great photos, Marcus Thompson leading the band up the street with Swifts flags."
Back home, though, Dungannon was often an icy land, and a wet one, for Joe's Juniors.
"I was fed up getting foundered and them getting foundered." He decided they needed a better home.
At long last he was able to take over some council land, used by the Integrated College for their mobile buildings before they moved to a new-build.
"I was wary, but they offered it to me for a £50 per year lease. They wanted rid of it. I bought the wooden classrooms for about £17,500, I'd about £22,000 saved up from running the juniors."
His next investments were huge - and frightening: "We have spent on this site almost £1.8m. We promised to spend, when we got the lease, £200,000, upgrading this site - which scared me at the time. When I look back on it now, it was nothing.
"This building that we're sitting in cost £870,000. About £600,000 has been put in by Dungannon United Youth.
"We've 16 teams now, from the age of eight up in the wee mini-soccer."
Appropriately, the land bridges Catholic and Protestant residential areas.
From Manooney to Keflavik, sending players from Tyrone and Armagh to Liverpool, the journey continues for Joe McAree.
