How a friendship with Carrick Rangers manager Stuart King helped Paul Morgan in his professional career

It requires sacrifice – leaving behind friends and family, going out of your comfort zone and dealing with homesickness – which Paul Morgan found out when switching Belfast for Preston in 1994.

This wasn’t the original plan. The defender was supposed to be travelling to Rangers alongside the likes of St Andrews teammate Darren Fitzgerald, but coach Joe Kincaid could tell that path was not the correct one for Morgan.

"I was a mummy's boy and a really shy lad,” he said. “Joe thought it was too big a club for me and that I would get swallowed up and he was right - I was just very shy.”

Instead he linked up with Preston, managed by David Moyes at the time, and after giving many thoughts to moving back home before signing a professional deal, another Northern Irishman arrived in Lancashire – current Carrick Rangers boss Stuart King.

King enjoyed a playing career that brought him from Preston to Ross County, Queen of the South and Southend United before switching to the Irish League with Linfield in 2001 where he won a league title.

Further spells with Ballymena United, Glenavon, Larne, Ballyclare and Banbridge Town followed until King turned to management, leading Carrick this season to their best ever top-flight campaign and they head into the split fighting for a European play-off spot.

It was that friendship with King that helped Northern Ireland youth international Morgan settle and set up a career in England.

"The first year or two were very difficult and I wanted to come home on numerous occasions,” he said. “My dad would tell me 'if you want to come home then come home' and that was the worst thing he could have said because then I didn't want to!

"I wanted to prove people wrong and luckily when I became a first year pro Stuart came over and he became my best mate.

"When Kingy came over it was brilliant for me because he helped me settle down. We would go out, looked after each other and had somebody to bounce off. He went back and it was difficult because you have to find your own way.

"At the weekend myself and Stuarty would go down to get fish and chips and they couldn't understand a word I was saying! I was going bright red - they couldn't understand me and I didn't know how to communicate.

"He was the best man at my wedding and I was his too. Saying that, he got married in Barbados which cost me a fortune! Either neither of his other mates could go or maybe I was the last choice, I don't know!"

It’s no surprise to Morgan that King is thriving in Premiership management after Carrick appointed him in the summer of 2021.

This season has been one of progress for the Loughview Leisure Arena outfit and King, who have collected two more wins, three more points and already scored the same amount of goals in 33 matches than they managed in 2021/22.

"Stuarty is brilliant,” added Morgan. “He has this aura about him that's quite contagious and is a lovely lad. Anybody who meets him he just fills them full of joy.

"He has done really well at Carrick. Their budget wouldn't be great but he will demand from players and get the best out of them. He's one of those managers that players can relate with and he's open so players can go and talk to him. Players will want to run through a brick wall for him.”

Another current Danske Bank Premiership manager that Morgan knows well is Linfield’s David Healy having shared a Northern Ireland U21 dressing room with the future great and was also at Deepdale when he arrived from Manchester United.

"He was a goalscorer and in football that's the hardest thing,” he said of a young Healy. “Darren Fitzgerald was probably the one that you initially thought would go on and set the world on fire.

"Everybody was saying he was like the next George Best and he scored for fun at every club he was at as a kid.

"There are a lot of factors and variables that can impact on it but Healy had quality. He scored for fun and it was fantastic to see him going on to set the world on fire because he did, especially in that game against Spain - everybody in the world knew his name.

"I met up with Healy when he came to Preston when I was still here and he did really well for them. I know him really well.

"It's nice to see these lads come over and do really well for themselves and continue afterwards. He's doing really well at Linfield and probably doesn't get the credit he deserves because it's Linfield but it's never easy wherever you are in management."