'The fact it’s a three-dimensional job, that’s what makes it stand out.'
Here, two miles from the city centre, there’s a bit of Friday evening bustle going on, locals moving in and out of a row of one-storied shops, a group of six drinkers sinking pints outside a pub.Read next: James McClean's son signs with League Two club
As they speak, there is no eye contact between them, everyone subconsciously diverting their gaze towards the mural. Even more impressive than that is the fact he has already won more caps than Roy Keane, John Giles, Paul McGrath and Liam Brady - Irish football’s Mount Rushmore. “But it is testament to how he lived his life. He knew where he wanted to be. There was a lot of sacrifice. His family life, he was away living in England on his own, he was missing birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries, and it was hard at the start watching him over there on his own because you could see it was hurting him.
O’Doherty knows as much. He tells you about a snowy Christmas Eve, back when McClean was a Derry City player. “I was driving just up there,” he says, pointing in the direction of Cregan Heights, McClean’s home. “I tried to get him a trade in the building game when he was 16,” says Waxy. “But he was having none of it. He just kept on repeating. ‘Da, I want to make it in football, I’m going to make it’.
Raymond, whose father Edmund founded this club in the 1930s, opens up the club book to show you a picture of a 13-year-old McClean in 2001. In the picture, 10 players are staring at the camera. McClean was the exception, shyly looking to one side.
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