Rotherham United: The George Hirst Interview

He was due to take a phone call from Rotherham United manager Paul Warne as the Millers closed in on a season-long loan deal for the Leicester City striker.

Suddenly, the message came through on a Monday evening: “Won’t be long. Just at dog-training.”

The player warmed to the fact that Warne could be doing something as mundane and normal as taking his Red Fox Labrador puppy, Chief, to a class in Conisbrough.

“Yeah, brilliant,” he says, laughing at the memory. “That was my first contact with the Gaffer. I’ve got nothing but good words to say about him.”

Hirst duly left the Premier League to join the Championship Millers last week. He’d been Rotherham’s top target throughout the summer transfer window. In fact, Warne had been coveting him for several windows, right back to the time when the forward was a kid coming through the age groups at Sheffield Wednesday and Carlos Carvalhal was manager.

The youngster has got the England-youth pedigree, the genes of Owls-legend dad David, the experience of growing up quickly in a foreign country on his own when he left Hillsborough, the benefit of training daily with Leicester’s first team and the boost of his top-flight debut last season.

He’s 21. Time to produce in senior football after all the promise of the junior ranks.

“I’ve developed massively,” he says. “I left Sheffield Wednesday almost four years ago. People will remember a 17-year-old kid who scored a few goals.

“I think since then I have matured as a person and a player and bulked up a little bit. It has been a good few years. I have learned a hell of a lot and I am excited now. I just can’t wait to get going.

“There are lot of games in the Championship. You are looking at Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday, which is perfect for me as a striker. Hopefully I can get off to a good start and score a few goals. When the games keep on coming, it gives you more opportunity to score.

“I spoke to the Gaffer before it all got sorted and he expressed that he had been after me for a few windows.

For me, that was a big thing. It is important for me at this stage to go and get game-time at a good level. To do it with a team where you feel wanted is a big thing.

“I feel ready to go. A lot of the teams were off during lockdown, but I was back in for the Premier League restart in June. I had only two or three weeks off. I played 90 minutes last week for Leicester’s under-21s and felt good. In my head, I am good and ready to go.”

We’re speaking on a Zoom call last Wednesday, just five minutes after his move to AESSEAL New York Stadium had been announced.

It looks like he’s in the living room at the flat he moved into 12 months ago. There’s a pair of cream curtains in the background and a light fitting on the wall that he perhaps didn’t choose himself.

He’s sporting a dark baseball cap and a Puma tracksuit top, has a bit of beard on the go and seems a decent, grounded lad.

News of his arrival was met with a wave of excitement among Millers fans but he left Wednesday under a cloud when a new contract couldn’t be agreed and he’s savvy enough to know that not everyone in South Yorkshire will wish him well.

“I am going to be judged on goals,” he says. “As a striker, scoring is what I pride myself on, and I also want to help get this team as high up the table as possible.

“That is the main aim. If I can help with that by scoring goals week in week out then that is brilliant. There are a lot of people who think I can’t do it. Deep down for me, it is about proving a point and helping Rotherham go as far as possible.

“People are entitled to their opinion. I know the qualities I have can help this team and that is why I came to Rotherham. The way they play and my style of play — hard working, going after balls in behind, chasing lost causes and scoring goals — is a good partnership.”

Prior to the Millers, Hirst had only four first-team substitute appearances to his name in England — two for the Owls and two for the Foxes, against Spurs and Manchester United in July — although he played more than 20 times for the Foxes’ Belgian feeder club, OH Leuven, prior to moving to the King Power Stadium.

He’s been among the goals for Leicester U-21s and scored in his final outing before joining Rotherham, in a 2-1 Football League Trophy win at Hull City earlier this month.

His 30-minute cameo on his Rotherham debut against Millwall last weekend, when he nearly scored, bodes well for what might be to come.

Warne believes Hirst is ready to make his breakthrough at New York and the attacker is already feeling at home.

“It’s a very relaxed place,” he says. “You can speak to the Gaffer, you can speak to any of the staff about any problems you have on or off the pitch. That’s the vibe I was getting when I spoke to him. It just felt like a perfect place for me to go and take that next step.

“I think it summed up the Gaffer when he dropped me a text saying: ‘Can I ring you in a hour? I’m just at puppy class.’”

The new boy is open and engaging but clams up when the topic of what happened at Wednesday arises. Two reporters with Sheffield connections try and get nowhere. He’s not rude but very definite about his silence.

That was then and he’s obviously determined to leave the sourness behind him. This is now and he’s talkative on every subject relating to the Millers.

“There were other teams interested in me but, you know, once I heard about Rotherham and spoke to the Gaffer, my mind was sort of mind up really,” he says.

I know how Rotherham play. It was a match made in heaven really. Their game-style suits my game-style. I wanted to come to a team where I could make a difference.

“To go somewhere else and maybe sit on the bench or not get in the squad wasn’t what I was looking for. It just felt right to come to a place where there would still be competition but where I also felt I could still make an impact on the squad.”

Warne later reveals in a Zoom press conference of his own that two of around ten other clubs chasing the player were from the Championship.

Hirst has long lived with the demands that comes with his surname and appears unfazed: confident enough to do it his way but without the arrogance to think he can do it without advice.

“I spoke to my dad about the move and got his opinion,” he says. “My dad will give his opinion on certain matters when I ask him but, at the end of the day, everything that happens in my career is my decision.

“I spoke to my dad and to my agent and came to the decision that Rotherham was where I wanted to play my football this season. It should be a good experience and hopefully one that I will enjoy.

I ask if he’s comfortable with the added expectation that being right at the top of the Millers’ recruitment list inevitably brings.

“Pressure’s part of the game, to be honest,” he says. “Without pressure, it’s not enjoyable playing. With my dad being who he is, I’ve grown up from a very young age with a lot of pressure on my shoulders anyway. I just see it as a motivation.

“You know, it’s about coming in and having that trust from the Gaffer the second you walk through the door, knowing that he wants you at the club, that he values you and what you can do. That’s a big thing for me.”

What isn’t a big thing is the travel. His morning journey to Rotherham’s Roundwood training ground takes just 25 minutes.

“I still live in Sheffield, so I’m pretty local,” he says. “I live in a little apartment. I moved out of my mum and dad’s house about a year ago.

“I was driving down to Leicester every day — just over an hour. Leicester are okay with me living where I do. It helps you keep your work and your personal life separate.”

Before he left the King Power, he found time to check out the Millers with two other Foxes who have made the same switch in the recent past: goalkeepers Dan Iversen and Viktor Johansson.

“They both gave rave reviews,” he says. “It is a close-knit community and a family club here. They are careful with their signings because they don’t want players to go in and ruin that bond. For the staff to look at me as a candidate to come in was brilliant. It says a lot about me as a person. That was another big reason why I chose Rotherham.”

There is a reason why Rotherham chose him, starting with the 40 goals he scored in one season for club and country during his Owls days in 2016/17.

Little wonder Warne was happy to put in a call straight after Chief’s class.

“I back myself to the end,” says Hirst, no longer an Owls pup, now looking to be Millers top-dog.

**********************

LEARNING FROM VARDY

ROTHERHAM United loan singing George Hirst has been rubbing shoulders with the likes of England striker Jamie Vardy and Nigerian international centre-forward Kelechi Iheanacho at parent club Leicester City.

The 21-year-old is part of the Foxes’ first-team training group and says he has learned “absolutely loads” from working so closely every day with two of the top flight’s best attackers.

“It has been brilliant for me,” he says. “I have developed no end as a player. To go in there and to not learn from them would be ignorant of me.

“Jamie is one of the greatest strikers to play in the Premier League — you just have to look at his record and the goals he has scored to see that. How he got there is a story in itself.

“If I can take little bits from his game and little bits from Kelechi’s game and put them together then hopefully I will be in a good place.”

Hirst had two substitute outings towards the end of last season and adds: “To get a little bit of a taste of the Premier League was a massive bonus.

“It was what I was striving to do when I joined Leicester. For the last few months, it has been brilliant.”

**********************

LIFE ABROAD

GEORGE Hirst took a detour from Sheffield Wednesday to Belgian team OH Leuven before arriving permanently at Leicester City.

The Millers loanee left Hillsborough as a 20-year-old in September 2019 and lived on the continent until The Foxes called him back from their sister club.

“It was brilliant for me to go out there and get 25 games of first-team football where people’s jobs were on the line,” he says. “Maybe I learned even more off the pitch than on it.

“I learned so much about myself as a person, I was out there, living on my own, away from my family for the first time, in a country where not all the lads speak English, which can be difficult.

“It all helped me mature no end. It will be so much easier settling in with this Rotherham team.”

**********************

VIDEO CLINCHER

PAUL Warne has revealed how Rotherham United won the battle to land Premier League striker George Hirst on loan.

Numerous teams were after the centre-forward but the Millers managed to convince parent club Leicester City that AESSEAL New York Stadium was the best destination for the 21-year-old.

“We sent their recruitment team videos of loads of our games,” manager Warne said following the player’s arrival on a season-long deal.

“We showed them the crosses we get into the box and what we expect from our strikers. That seemed to sit well with the loans committee at Leicester. They thought it would do him good to come here.”

Some of the sides chasing the former Sheffield Wednesday youngster included some of Rotherham’s Championship rivals.

Hirst is looking for his first sustained run of senior football in this country after playing for Belgian side OH Leuven in between leaving the Owls and joining Leicester.

“He’s a level-headed lad but confident as well,” Warne said. “He’s played for England at most of the age groups. He’s used to a bit of pressure.

“We played Leicester Under-23s in pre-season but he didn’t play because he was with the first-team squad.

“I’ve had a chat with him and told him what’s expected. If we can get him anywhere near his potential, we’ll have a real asset on our hands.

“He wants a crack at English football. I know other clubs in the Championship were sniffing for him.

“Possibly, we give him the opportunity of more minutes than them. That depends on his performances for us. There is no guarantee for any of our signings.

“I’m hoping he comes in and gives us a bit more ‘bite’ up top and also pushes on the strikers I’ve already got here. If he raises the standards here, that’s a good thing.

“I think the move here will be great for him.”