There wasn’t a better feeling in the world for George Honeyman than pulling on the Sunderland shirt, that was until he netted his first goals for the club. But the ground 23-year-old is just desperate to keep hold of his jersey and please the Sunderland faithful with his performances, and if goals come too, that’s a big bonus for the lad who has been on the books since he was just 10. Here, George tells us of his earlier struggles and more recent success, as he continues to push himself in order to please the Black Cats faithful…
You’ve been involved in every league game so far this season, what has it meant to you?
It’s been everything that I’ve wanted. I’ve loved it and I just want to carry on. I’ve waited a long time for it and now I’ve eventually got here, it’s a nice feeling knowing that the hard work is paying off. I made my debut when I was 19, so there’s been a lot of distance between that and playing regularly. It’s been a bit of a struggle with different managers and injuries, but I’m just glad the club have shown faith in me and I’ve looked after myself to give myself this chance. Being a young lad, I’ve had to start all over again when a new manager comes in. But there’s nothing more I want at this time, I just want to keep going.
What would you say to another budding young professional, because you do have to be patient, don’t you?
Yeah, you do have to be patient. But I’ve never let that get me down, I’ve understood the reason with the club being in the hard position in recent times. You can’t let it affect you, I’ve cracked on and things have sorted themselves out. As long as you look after yourself and keep working hard, that’s all you can do. I do think you need a stroke of luck to became involved, no matter how good you are. You have to do everything you can right and, one way or another, you’ll make it – whether that’s here or even at another club.
Has anybody taken you under their wing?
Quite a few. I’ve been lucky that we’ve had a good group of professionals at Sunderland who I’ve learnt from. The likes of John O’Shea, Lee Cattermole, Billy (Jones), people like that among others. There have been some good guys and there still are, I’ve been lucky in that sense that there have been some good people who show me the ropes, so to speak!
Have they afforded you time off the field as well?
I feel I can go to any of them whenever I want for advice which I have done a lot. Whether that’s on or off-the-field stuff, it’s nice to have that support behind you. Being a good person off the pitch comes from our academy. It’s instilled in us all that they make us good people, as well as good footballers. That’ll take you a long way in every walk of life. There can be a lot of directions and people fall off it sometimes, but you’ve got to be able to learn from what you do wrong. At the end of the day, you’re trying to be a professional athlete so it’s important to give yourself the best possible chance to make it.
You’ve been patient for your chance in the team but you didn’t have to wait long for your first goal. That must have felt good…
My target was to stay in the team. Goals are obviously great, there’s no better feeling than that and I want to score as many as possible. But I genuinely just want to stay in the team. It was a bit intense when I scored. I know it was only in the cup at Bury but it was so special. I’ll always remember it, though. I was in front of the away fans and all the lows you go through makes it all feel worthwhile when you hit that high. I had a couple of friends in the away end and one who’s an avid Sunderland fan who I played with at Gateshead, he goes to every away game. Then I got the one at Hillsborough which was a bit weird because it was right at the start of the game. It took me a couple of seconds to realised I’d actually scored, but there’s nothing better.