{"id":193328,"date":"2025-11-21T22:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T22:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/193328\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T22:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T22:39:10","slug":"winning-an-all-ireland-doesnt-bring-you-peace-ex-galway-ace-adrian-varley-on-quitting-county-football-alcohol-and-conquering-his-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/193328\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Winning an All-Ireland doesn\u2019t bring you peace\u2019 \u2013 ex-Galway ace Adrian Varley on quitting county football, alcohol, and conquering his fears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Former Galway and New York footballer Adrian Varley at Dangan grounds at University of Galway this week. Photo: Ray Ryan\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7d09ca5a-8954-4b98-898a-b60d0dd0f4a3.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Former Galway and New York footballer Adrian Varley at Dangan grounds at University of Galway this week. Photo: Ray Ryan<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">When you get to hear Adrian Varley\u2019s life story \u2013 the highs and lows, the mental health struggles \u2013 it makes almost perfect metaphorical sense that he decided to call time on Galway at the height of Covid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It was November 2020. He had hurt his hamstring \u2013 \u201canother kick in the teeth\u201d \u2013 some 10 days out from the Connacht SFC final against Mayo in Pearse Stadium. And in those depressingly isolated times, if you weren\u2019t in the \u201826\u2019, then you weren\u2019t allowed in the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Galway and New York footballer Adrian Varley at Dangan grounds at University of Galway this week. Photo:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[55538,18,31185,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-193328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-galway-gaa","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-frank-roche","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115590094582122701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}