Jack Grealish explains how his secret Gaelic football career helped "toughen" him up

While the Premier League star is well known for being a former Ireland underage star who then swapped his international allegiance to his native England, Grealish’s Irish connections go deeper than that.

The Manchester City star has Irish heritage on both sides of his family and played with Warwickshire GAA into his teen years.

His rough-and-tumble existence on the bigger GAA pitch would become an issue due to his burgeoning youth career with Aston Villa, and eventually, Grealish was forced to leave his GAA days behind and concentrate on soccer.

Although his Gaelic past is well in the rearview, the Champions League winner still looks back fondly on those days.

The 29-year-old believes that experience with the Irish sports has actually aided his development by toughening him up for the on-pitch action.

"Do you know what I think playing Gaelic was one of the biggest things that helped me during my career because it’s so rough compared to football", the Man City star said on TikTok.

"You used to get hit, whacked and stomped while you were dribbling. So, I feel like it toughened me up, and that was the reason why, obviously, Aston Villa wanted me to stop playing, but I don’t regret it.

"I never wanted to stop playing, I wanted to carry on. I did privately, but Villa wouldn’t find out, and there was big tournaments going on and I wanted to play in them, so I carried on playing.’

"I got caught a few times, yeah. But it wasn’t like, if you don’t stop playing, we’re going to release you.

"But they were just wanting me to stop, you know, for my own good, which I understood, but I just loved it."

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.