{"id":250178,"date":"2026-01-17T21:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T21:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/250178\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T21:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T21:44:15","slug":"james-mcclean-hails-surreal-return-to-derry-city-as-ex-ireland-winger-salutes-wrexham-as-a-touch-of-class-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/250178\/","title":{"rendered":"James McClean hails \u2018surreal\u2019 return to Derry City as ex-Ireland winger salutes Wrexham as a \u2018touch of class\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Veteran midfielder\u2019s time in Wales comes to an end as he signs multi-year deal at Brandywell\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"New Derry City signing James McClean is pictured during a media event in Derry. Photo: Ramsey Cardy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/246866ef-c236-48a2-806b-57b4d08d3ea3.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">New Derry City signing James McClean is pictured during a media event in Derry. Photo: Ramsey Cardy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">James McClean has finalised his return to Derry City after an agreement was reached with Wrexham to allow the 36-year-old to make an immediate move to the Brandywell on a permanent basis ahead of the new League of Ireland season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Confirmation of the move came in a press conference in the city this evening, after the Irish Independent exclusively revealed news of the move earlier today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran midfielder\u2019s time in Wales comes to an end as he signs multi-year deal at Brandywell New Derry&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14646,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-250178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-derry-city","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}