Former Joey Jack Iredale is in the spotlight after Cambridge’s dramatic win at Newcastle – and loving it, Iredale tells Tom Smithies.
More than 24 hours later, Jack Iredale is still “pinching myself really”, as he reads – and rereads – the growing library of stories about a famous FA Cup upset.
Fresh from chatting to the BBC, the former Young Socceroo is reflecting for KEEPUP on how his team in League One, Cambridge United, travelled to Premier League Newcastle and produced one of the great FA Cup results of recent years.
Here’s the thing though – Cambridge were undoubtedly valiant and heroic and all the other terms usually used of giantkillers, but they were also tactically smart, disciplined, almost scored a second and in the end deserved their famous 1-0 win.
At the heart of the back four was an Aussie-raised defender who thinks of himself as “a leftback helping out at centreback”, but was excellent in repelling an Premier League attack in front of a crowd of more than 51,000 – 95% of whom were screaming for the United playing in famous black and white stripes.
“To be honest I’m still pinching myself a little bit,” Iredale told KEEPUP. “Really, every time I see pictures or footage from yesterday, there’s still a little bit of disbelief about what’s happened – seeing my teammates’ faces all over the newspapers and socials today. So it was a special feeling.
“I mean, what a place to play football, the atmosphere was incredible. It’s definitely by far the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of and we knew going into it that everyone was going to have to be right at their very best to get something out the game.
“And thankfully, you know, the players stepped up. I thought Dimitar Mitov in goal was absolutely incredible. That’s one of the best games I’ve ever seen a goalkeeper have, and big Joey (Ironside, the goalscorer) up top was causing carnage for Premier League defenders. Everyone else in between did their roles.”
Iredale speaks repeatedly of roles and the game plan, the brainchild of Cambridge head coach Mark Bonner – who at 36 never played professionally, but has literally worked his way up from coaching the U8s team to the first team.
United’s savvy, counterattacking style could have been made for the challenge of shutting down an ostensibly superior opponent.
“It’s something that we’ve become very, very good at, spending periods of time without the ball, and choosing our moments when to attack but having to have that moment of quality when we do get the ball,” said Iredale.
“We knew going there that we weren’t going to have the lion’s share of possession. We knew that there were going to be a long, difficult spells without the ball. But everything just seemed to fall in place.
“Bonners has done basically every job at Cambridge now I think, from right at the bottom to now the head coach, the manager. He’s someone that the boys love playing for, obviously, he’s a local Cambridge guy who the fans absolutely love.
“Since he’s come in and been given the job full time, you know, the results speak for themselves really. I think before I came to the club we were at the bottom of League Two and then the gaffer started to put together his team and his style of play.
“Last season we had promotion (from League Two) and this season, we’re competing really, really well in League One now. You know, for the size of club that Cambridge is and the team that we have, it’s been awesome to be involved in.
“It’s enjoyable that’s for sure. Everyone on the pitch, everyone in the squad knows exactly what direction we’re moving in and knows what we’re trying to do. We’ve got an effective style of play and we’ve got the right players for it as well.”
For Iredale that means putting his forays from leftback on hold in order to play a role at centreback, though he laughs at the suggestion that observers might start to view him primarily in the middle of defence.
“They can see me as they’d like to see me!” he said. “I think I definitely prefer to play left back. And I think I’m more effective as a left back, but you know, I’m playing every minute for now. So wherever the gaffer wants to put me, as long as it’s on the pitch, I don’t really care.”
It makes sense when you realise that Iredale underwent three ACL operations in his teenage years, the first two hugely disrupting his scholarship to the AIS and the last coming as he established himself in Perth Glory’s youth team.
Though Iredale fought back once more from the third operation and was training with Glory’s senior team, he opted to try his luck in the UK – earning deals at Greenock Morton and Carlisle, before joining Bonner’s Cambridge revival.
“I went through that stage there where I didn’t know if I was ever going to get a chance to professional football,” Iredale said. “But then when I came to the UK I did absolutely everything I possibly could to do it and a couple years later now, coming off a result like that, it’s something I’m really happy with and I’m really going to enjoy it.
“But also at the same time, you can’t get too low with the lows and you can’t get too high with the highs. You just got to sort of ride it out and it all balances out.”
Now he and Cambridge can think of going on a cup run, having been drawn against Luton – in the bottom half of the Championship – in the next round. “It’ll be a very different kind of game, but why can’t it be winnable?” Iredale said.
The consequent spotlight won’t hurt for other reasons too, at a point when a long-term injury to Harry Souttar has reignited questions over who should man the centreback positions for the Socceroos.
“Well I was involved in the Joey’s (Australian U17s) when I was younger and I loved every single minute of that,” Iredale said. “So to play for the Socceroos would be an absolute dream come true.
“It’s a goal that I’ve set myself and with a result like that there’s going to be some publicity around it. So it’s something that I’m working really, really hard towards every single day and like I said, it would be an absolute dream come true.”
