Barnsley FC player-coach Conor Hourihane on Steve Cooper inspiration, his 'full-on' role and going out with a bang

The Oakwell legend and promotion-winning former captain returned to the club last month - after leaving Derby following their return to the Championship.

The Irish midfielder, who has signed a multi-year contract, is expected to combine playing with coaching in a hybrid role for the next two years before hanging up his boots at the end of the 2025-26 season when he will be 35.

The managerial and coaching names that Hourihane has previously played under reads like a Who’s Who of EFL football, with Cooper - who recently returned to top-flight management at Leicester City following a highly-successful spell at Nottingham Forest - convincing him that coaching was for him.

Hourihane told The Yorkshire Post: “I think the main relationship was probably Steve Cooper at Swansea. Over the course of Covid and starting my badges off, I always had that hunger for noting things down in a journal and thinking I might need this in the future. Then when I met Steve, with how he managed me, he was so open in terms of learning and going into his office. It fascinated me a little bit in how he worked. I keep in contact with him now and he’s a brilliant guy.

"Meeting him was a big influence on me in terms of thinking: ‘right, this is my time to really learn from someone who I really admire.’ I took a lot of things from him which I use now.

"You take stuff from all managers. I’ve had the older crop in Martin O’Neill, Mick McCarthy and Steve Bruce and then Steve Cooper and Hecky (Paul Heckingbottom) and then coaches like Keith Andrews - he was a brilliant coach and Anthony Barry, who was at Bayern Munich with Thomas Tuchel.

"It’s about taking little bits and pieces from everyone and learning and being open to learn. You must have that passion, fascination and obsession about the game to realise that everyone can give you something different.”

Due to his dual role, Hourihane is unlikely to get too much time to himself as he combines his playing commitments with coaching work.

He is the first to admit that it will be ‘full on’ and while he is relishing the task in hand, he has reiterated that his assimilation from playing to coaching will mean that he is unlikely to be the talismanic on-pitch presence that he consistently was during his golden first spell at Barnsley, whom he led to Wembley glory twice at the end of 2015-16.

He continued: "It’s going to be a challenging role, but great. I have fond memories (of before), but it’s just going to be a different dynamic.

"People need to realise that and hopefully I can have an influence similar to previous times, but in a different way now. That’s how people need to see it. It’s going to be full on. I’ve been leaving here at 4 or 5 o’clock, that’s the coaching hours. You are training and into the coaching office and then debriefing things and looking and talking about things. I suppose you need to love the game to really enjoy that, I have and I’m sure that will continue.”

Alongside promotions at Barnsley and Derby, Hourihane was part of the Aston Villa side that triumphed in the Championship play-off final in 2019 and says he is desperate for his playing career to end with a bang at Oakwell.

Hourihane, who also had a loan spell at Sheffield United in 2021-22, added: “Some people fizzle out at certain clubs and drop and drop and go out of the game.

"To go out at a club where you are highly thought of is really a nice script to have.

"Whether it’s at the end of this year, next year or whatever it might be, who knows. But it’s really nice to be back somewhere where you are really appreciated.”