“My phone kept buzzing with messages, but I was so tired, I went to sleep immediately – I had not realized that I would establish the record!”
For Linfield -captain Jamie Mulgrew was just like any other last Tuesday evening. The 38-year-old midfielder spent the evening coaching the club under the age of 18. Once home he watched football and then went to bed. But for Mulgrew and Linfield this was a record -breaking evening.
The television match was between the two nearest rivals of Linfield: Glentoran Drew against Larne, who confirmed Linfield as champions for the 57th time, a world record. Mulgrew’s 11th League Winner’s Medal – establishing a national record and joined that success into an exclusive global club. It was an extraordinary achievement in the most ordinary circumstances.
“In some respects it was an anti-climax,” admits Mulgrew. “You would always prefer to win it on the field.” The title was confirmed with another six match days left.
Only four active professional football players-Dinamo Zagrebs Arijan breathi (13), Thomas Muller from Bayern Munich, James Forrest van Celtic and former TNS Full-back Chris Marriott (all 12)-more competition titles won in One European Club. Yet there is one important difference: Linfield has been considerably less dominant in its own country than one of those clubs. Larne came in this season as back-to-back champions and since 2013 Crusaders had won three league titles and Cliftonville Two.
Mulgrew, who will be 39 in July, it insists that those titll -free campaigns make his successes more fun, which emphasizes the five -year gap between titles from 2012 to 2017.
“You never know if it will be your last and that makes them sweeter,” he offers. “The hunger for more never disappears.”
Mulgrew celebrates the winning of last season’s League Cup with his children (published with the permission of Jamie Mulgrew)
Mulgrew started his career at Glentoran, the primary Belfast rivals in Linfield.
He made two first team performances, also during their competition success 2004-05. Linfield approached Mulgrew that summer, with the 19-year-old contract and he decided to become a member of the club he had supported in his youth. That season 2005-06, Linfield saw a clean sweep of all four domestic trophies complete, but a recurring medial knee injury limited the playing time of Mulgrew.
For successive seasons, the midfielder was involved in title -winning squadrons, but missed the minimum appearance threshold to claim the medal of a winner.
Mulgrew, who has 26 trophies and counts in Linfield, believes that his climb to the captain was born to have to fight for recognition in a dressing room of serial winners. “That squadron I was a member of was full of leaders and great personalities,” he explains. “You had to adapt to those standards. At the time it was only 14 players MatchDay Squadrons, so you constantly had that pressure from performing and working.”
His lifespan is made more remarkable in view of his playing style; Mulgrew is a combative midfielder comfortable in wearing the ball, shuffling past opponents and drawing free kicks because of his low center of gravity. Although there is no statistical measurement available, it is generally considered the most polluted player of the Irish League.
Yet he has other qualities that are demonstrably more important: constantly instructing teammates about positioning, what is to make, when he has to push the field and when a competition has to be delayed. He mentions his leadership to his early years at the club.
“I was formed by that pressure to win and act, to know how to train, put an example on and next to the field, to have the right combination between trust and staying modest … and that hunger,” he says. “To use criticism as a fuel. That is what I try to use in my teammates and the young people I coach.”
Mulgrew exchanges wimpels with Scott Brown from Celtic for a Champions League qualifying match in 2017 (Craig Williamson – SNS Groupns Group via Getty Images)
One of the largest tasks in the midfielder is to help new players integrate into a winning culture.
“The pressure at Linfield is unique – winning trophies is everything,” says Mulgrew. “I came to the club so young, that environment is all I have ever known. But others take the time to adjust. It is our job to make them comfortable, but our responsibility for them is more than that – we have to win for them. If they become a member of a winning team, it raises pressure.”
Mulgrew will almost certainly not exceed the remarkable count of 1,013 Linfield performances that his former teammate, Noel Bailie, but he connects to the 800-game monument. There has been more interest from elsewhere. In 2011, a year after his two international performances for Noord -Ireland, the Linfield contract from Mulgrew went and attracted interest from Colombus Crew and Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer. The midfielder traveled to the United States for individual trial periods, but decided a move.
Linfield went full -time in 2021; An upgrade of their previous semi-professional status. This was not without risk, whereby different teammates in the long term of Mulgrew decided to move elsewhere due to personal circumstances. But for Mulgrew the possibility to be full -time, 34 years old, was too good to reject.
His work outside of football was centered on afternoons, where the new model released its evenings to spend with his wife and three young children. “That decision has undoubtedly extended my career.”
Mulgrew fires a shot during a UEFA Conference League play-off in 2022 (Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images)
For Mulgrew and his teammates, the Trophy Lift of this season will have extra emotion.
In June 2024 the physiotherapist of the club, Paul Butler, suddenly died 37 years old. Six months later Michael Newberry – the defender who spent three and a half seasons in Linfield before he came to Cliftonville last summer – on his 27th birthday.
“What happened in the past year is difficult to come to terms,” says Mulgrew, whose brother -in -law died in 2023. “We can forget how someone, how famous or successful, are only people and we all go through the same emotions.
“For us it is an important support network for us to be in a team environment and to train together.
“This team also has a great character and resilience, which is confirmed this season by our results, but also because of everything we have combined.”
Mulgrew has already committed to Linfield for the following season, which will take him to his 40th birthday. “I will not notice my welcome,” he says. “I will know when it’s time to go aside.”
He believes that he should listen more to his body and play more in the campaign due to muscle pain. That is an indication of his ruthless desire to be involved, but nowadays he has to make a compromise.
Mulgrew will start his UEFA Pro Coaching permit next week and although the current Linfield manager David Healy has said earlier that he “keeps the chair warm for him” and his captain often consults while he knows the club inside out “, the midfielder says that his focus is on adding his success on the field.
Mulgrew adds: “I want all my 12th title.”
(Top photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty images)