“I’d known Jonny since I was 19 and I was at Drogheda and he was at Sligo,” says St Mirren midfield Killian Phillips. “We played against each other and in the same under-21s team.
“We were close enough even before he came back to Celtic from his loan at Shamrock Rovers. When he was looking for accommodation, he came in with me until he found somewhere.
“He was my flatmate from January to February and, in fairness, he was tidy enough. The only thing was that he wouldn’t do the dishes….”
Johnny Kenny and Killian Phillips shared a flat in Glasgow (Image: PA)
For a few weeks the Odd Couple of Scottish football fell into the kind of domestic routine Jack and Victor from Still Game might have found a bit tame.
“We’d come home from training at St Mirren and Celtic, nap for a bit then stick the football on the telly. That was pretty much it.”
Phillips will park a few old friendships by the side of the road in Paisley tonight. Growing up in Kilbarrack, a suburb of Dublin, the 23-year-old was surrounded by Celtic fans. One or two might even pitch up tonight to lend their support to Kenny and Liam Scales and Martin O’Neill over their boyhood pal. All’s fair in the love and war of professional football.
“Most of my mates are Celtic fans and have travelled over for games,’ Phillips nods with a grin. “So when I play against them, that’s fun.
“It’s funny now because Martin O’Neill probably gave me some of the best days of my life when he was Ireland manager.
“I was in the stadium when Shane Long scored that goal against Germany and the time we beat Bosnia in the play-off…”
Visits to the Aviva were usually spent envisaging a future where he, too, might pull a Republic of Ireland jersey over his head one day.
When his performances for St Mirren were rewarded with a call up for the friendlies against Senegal and Luxembourg at the end of last season the dream became real. Playing amateur football at the age of 16 he’d been rejected by League or Ireland sides Shelbourne and Bohemians. Back then the idea of playing international football felt delusional.
“I finished up back at Kilbarrack, my local team, in the Sunday league. It wasn’t even the highest level of the Sunday league.
“Six months later I was at Drogheda playing for the under-19s and six months after that I was in the first team.
“I was a late developer. And during the covid situation I would be out on the road playing football by myself and I think I improved so much.
“Al I could think about when I was kicking a ball against a wall was that I just wanted to wear that green jersey once.”
Killian Phillips has earned international recognition at St Mirren (Image: PA)
A second half substitute for Matt Doherty against Senegal in June, it only felt right to mark his debut by seeking out and hugging the woman who made it all possible at the final whistle.
His mother Cora had stood on the sidelines in the pouring rain day after day, knocking back social invitations from sisters on a Saturday night to make sure she’d be fit to drive her boy to a game of football on a Sunday morning.
“When I was called up I phoned mum and she was on the phone sobbing her eyes out. She didn’t say anything, she couldn’t.
“She was just crying on the phone and when I made my debut in the Aviva it was everything I had ever dreamed of.
“When I was Drogheda she would leave work at 4 o’clock and take me to the club an hour away and we wouldn’t be back in the gaff till after nine.
“She’d have left home to go to work at 9am so those were 12 hour days and she was doing that for me.
“She was a single parent and had four boys to look after, I have no idea how she did it.
“So I wanted to share that moment with here when I played for Ireland because, yeah, I worked hard. But I wouldn’t be where I am without her working far far harder for me.”
There was a scenario where he might have pledged his future to Uncle Sam instead. Born in San Diego the midfielder attracted a call from the United States Soccer Federation during a spell at Shrewsbury to ask if he’d be interested in donning the Stars n’ Stripes for the under-23 team. He barely gave it a thought.
At the age of five he had moved back across the pond with his mother to live in his grandparents’ over-crowded three bedroom home and never felt the same pull towards the land of his birth as he did to Ireland.
“I lost the American accent pretty quick,’ he laughs. “I don’t remember anything about San Diego at all now. I’m sure it must have been a shock to everyone when I went out in Kilbarrack with the big American accent…”
Interest from America continues in a slightly different form. Recently a European scout from an MLS club called his agent Raymond Sparkes to seek out details of the tall, energetic player making a name for himself in Paisley.
Sparkes has also taken calls from teams in Italy, Spain and Germany. At the age of 23, with five goals to his name this season, Phillips is showing up on databases across Europe and beyond.
Comfortable as a number six, a box to box number eight or a playmaker number ten he credits Stephen Robinson with turning him into a player ready for whatever challenge comes next.
“I’ve felt welcome in Paisley and it’s no coincidence that I’m playing my best football at St Mirren.
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“The gaffer is a good manager tactically and a great man manager as well.
“He knows his players and how to get the best out of everyone.
“He cares about as well and you can’t always say that in football.
“He’s out there every day covering every blade of grass with us.
“He is in the trenches with us and when I look at him I see how much he cares.
“His intensity rubs off, not only on the pitch, but off it as well. It makes you want to go the extra mile for him.
“He is excellent and I can’t speak highly enough of him.”
Be that as it may there’s a limit to what Robinson, or Phillips, can achieve in Paisley. They face Celtic twice in the coming weeks and if they win the Premier Sports Cup Final at Hampden on December 14 there’s always the chance of better resourced clubs flying in clutching a chequebook.
“I probably feel like I have unfinished business in England,’ he admits. “Crystal Palace took a chance on me three years ago and taught me so much.
“I moved to London with £280 in the bank. I could barely afford the taxi from the airport with that.
“I had never left the country before or my house.
“When I did my ma and my brothers would always be with me and to move by myself at 19 was a new experience.
“I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t wash clothes, I couldn’t do anything.
Killian Phillips credits Stephen Robinson with transforming his career (Image: PA)
“My ma had always done everything until Dee, my digs landlady taught me how to use the washing machine and how to use a cooker.
“But I do believe that I can play football back at that level and I think I’m getting closer to that level every week.”
International recognition offered further evidence of his rapid development in Paisley and the aim is to play well enough at St Mirren to secure another crack at the national team before the World Cup play-offs in March.
He made his first start for his country in a 0-0 draw with Luxembourg, days after his Senegal debut. In September he was also given the final 20 minutes of the 2-1 defeat in Armenia which threatened to sink Ireland’s World Cup hopes hopes.
Heimir Halgrimsson turned to more experienced players for the double header against Portugal and the epic last ditch hat-trick over Hungary which sealed hat-trick hero Troy Parrott’s immortality. Beat Celtic to win the League Cup next month and Phillips hopes to be back in a green jersey in time to add to his three caps in America, Canada or Mexico.
“We had the weekend off for the Hungary game and I was in the local pub in Kilbarrack watching the game with all the boys.
“I couldn’t believe it. We were all jumping around and screaming and no one could believe what they were seeing.
“I must have been the only person in the pub sober. Come to think of it it I was probably the only one sober whole of Ireland that night….”
For a working class lad from Kilbarrack the teetotal existence is an unusual lifestyle choice. Explaining a life of sacrifice he compares a visit to his old school by former Nottingham Forest, Tottenham and Charlton player Andy Reid to a missionary delivering an epiphany.
“Andy’s message was that when I turned 40 and my career was behind me I could eat what I wanted and drink what I wanted to drink, but for 15 years I had to sacrifice everything else and it would be worthwhile.
“That just stuck with me. And I realised that was how I would have to live my life from then on.
“My mates call me the most boring person in the world because they think footballers party and go on nice holidays.
“All I really go is train, come home, go to the gym and rest and recover with a lot of naps.
“Kilbarrack was a tough old place to grow up and it would have been easy to go down the wrong road.
“But when I sacrificed that stuff it didn’t feel like a sacrifice. How could it when I wanted this so much?”