Hume City’s Matt Hennessey has a big Wednesday planned – his High School exam in the morning and a nationally televised Westfield FFA Cup semi final in the evening. Grandpa Terry, the former Wales and English League star, would be proud.
Amid Hume’s preparations to face the reigning Hyundai A-League champions in a David v Goliath Cup semi final, the 18-year-old defender has been studying for his Year 12 VCE exams in Melbourne.
Incredibly, Hennessey will sit his first test – a three-hour English exam - on the morning of the big match, to be screened live on Fox Sports from the 30,000 capacity AAMI Park.
FFA Cup preview: Hume v Victory
“I’ll probably go straight from the exam to the club to prepare for the game on the night," he told www.theffacup.com.au
“It’s been tough to mix in training three nights a week and study but I think I’ve managed it okay.
"Basically on the nights we didn’t train I’d be studying from the minute I got home to when I went to bed.
"And on the nights we did train I’d try to get in an hour's study in beforehand and after."
But if football lineage counts for much, he’ll do just fine.
Matt’s father is Dean Hennessey, the club’s technical director and a former state league player in Melbourne.
And Matt’s Grandfather is Terry Hennessey, well-known as a powerful defender in the UK during the 1960s and 70s at Derby Country, Birmingham City and Nottingham Forest. He also represented Wales almost 40 times.
Terry briefly coached in Melbourne during the mid-late 1980s and he brought Dean with him.
Meanwhile, the youngest Hennessey was part of the Hume side that accounted for a second-string Melbourne City outfit 2-0 in a friendly almost a fortnight ago.
With his part-time team’s PS4 NPL season having finished weeks ago, Hennessey said the hit-out was just what Hume needed ahead of their recent friendly against Victory.
“We needed 90 minutes. It’s tough to train for three, four weeks in between games without 90 minutes in there so to have that game under our belts really helped and was good for our confidence.
“I thought we played well. There were some good moments and some moments we needed to work on but we’ll go into the game confident.”
Hennessey has spent the last two seasons at Hume City, starting every match of his club’s fairytale run to the last four, and hopes to one day progress to the professional ranks.
The defender has shown an aerial prowess and composure on the ball that harks back to his Granddad, and he revealed he actually knocked back the chance to join the reigning A-League champions Victory last season.
“Last pre-season I had a couple of training sessions with Victory Youth which was a good experience. They offered me a train-on spot but I chose to stay at Hume.
“It’s been a great journey. All the lads at Hume and all the people around the club are really good people and it’s a great culture to be around.”
