Sometimes life comes at you fast.
One minute, you’re playing in front of a few dozen spectators at Damson Park, the modest home of Solihull Moors, the next you’re being mobbed by thousands of delirious fans after a last-minute goal in a vital Championship win at Bristol City.
The life of a professional footballer can be a bit of a whirlwind, as Caolan Boyd-Munce well knows.
From Turf Lodge to the West Midlands, Newhill Boys Club to Birmingham City FC, the 20-year-old midfielder is in the throes of a meteoric rise after being thrust into action this season by Blues boss Pep Clotet.
Urged to cut the club’s cloth and balance the books, the Spaniard has turned to youth, to such an extent in fact that 16-year-old Jude Bellingham recently broke Trevor Francis’s long-standing record as the youngest ever first team player.
So opportunity knocks for the club’s up-and-coming prospects, and Boyd-Munce is determined to seize his chance.
“It has all happened so quick,” said the Northern Ireland under-21 ace.
“Obviously I’ve been here a while and I’ve been grinding but there’s been a lot of players at the club, high-profile players on a lot of money.
“But they got rid of a few in the window and they called me up from then, I played one game, that was my chance and I did well so I’ve been in ever since.
“It’s been really good and especially good timing with the Euro play-offs coming up as well.”
Boyd-Munce moved to the Second City straight from Glentoran at the age of 16, spending his first three years there on scholarship terms with the academy and then the 23s development squad before penning a two-year pro deal last season.
He made his first team debut in the EFL Cup in August and was involved again last month in a dramatic penalty shootout win over Coventry in the fourth round of the FA Cup, paving the way for his call-up for the league trip to Ashton Gate the following Saturday.
And naturally, having glimpsed what life is like in the cauldron atmospheres of the Championship, he is hungry for more.
“These last couple of weeks have been the highlight of my career so far,” enthused Boyd-Munce.
“In my Championship debut against Bristol City, the way it happened, I literally came on to the pitch and was through on goal and the striker took it off me to score his 100th goal.
“But it was in the 90th minute, we were 2-1 up and he scored that to make it 3-1 and we had maybe 2,500 Birmingham fans in front of you, 30,000 in the stadium, and everything about it was just mental.
“And getting home, I couldn’t get to sleep until about 3.30 in the morning.
“Then the Coventry game in the FA Cup before that, we beat them on penalties. We were down twice, they scored in the 85th minute, we scored the equaliser in the 90th, and then in extra-time, they scored in the 115th and we scored in the 119th, so it was just constantly on edge.
“I am used to playing in front of 50, 60 people so that, and then winning on penalties, it was just unbelievable.” His star may be on the rise but Boyd-Munce doesn’t forget his roots.
In conversation, he comes across as a thoroughly decent and grounded lad.
Bubbling with confidence but modest too, it comes as no surprise that, alongside his football, he’s two years into a law degree as he prepares for all eventualities, lest the unthinkable happen.
But back on the field of play, he knows the hard work has only just begun.
It’s one thing to break into the first team across the water, quite another to carve out a living in one of the most ruthless and cut-throats professions in the world.
Short-term ambitions for Boyd-Munce then are to just keep plugging away.
Having got his big break, he’s clearly been going about things the right way, so he needs to just keep at it, keep doing the business on the training ground, keep believing and giving the manager something to think about.
“Because I’m so close to it, it’s time now to just get my foot in the door, to get more minutes and then try and be a regular come next season and hopefully with the international scene, that will help me as well,” he said.
Time and again, Boyd-Munce returns to Northern Ireland.
It’s clear his international future is hugely important to him, having represented his country from under-15 right up to his recent call-up to the 21s.
His involvement with the Irish FA stretches all the way back to when he was 10 years old, in fact, before the Elite programme was launched even, so he feels indebted to how they helped shape his career.
Indeed, talking to Boyd-Munce, it’s fascinating to hear his insights into what separates players in Northern Ireland from those across the water.
After starting out at his local club Newhill, he moved to Cliftonville then on to Linfield and latterly Glentoran, where he became the club’s youngest ever player when Alan Kernaghan blooded him in the first team at 16.
So he’s seen both sides of the coin and he’s adamant the only difference is in tutoring, not talent.
“It’s coaching,” said Boyd-Munce, cousin of Cliftonville hero Conor McMenamin.
“Even at under-9s over here [in Birmingham] the kids are a joke. I take one of the sessions as part of my coaching badges and the kids here are frightening, from the age of seven up to 12, they are a joke.
“So I’m coming over at 16 and what they are doing in a month is what we are doing in a year back home.
“So I was about five years behind them when I came over here physically and tactically.
“The transition from part-time football to full-time football is quite tough, especially with injuries, because you come in to do a pre-season and the pre-seasons aren’t easy. It took me a good couple of months to get up to speed but you get used to it.
“But in terms of talent, back home, there’s no difference in talent.
“Honest to God, there’s no difference, it’s just the coaching and playing full-time football over here which makes a massive difference.”
Interestingly, in the debate over what route into the pro ranks is preferable, the academy road he took, or via the Irish League like Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes, Boyd-Munce is tempted towards the latter.
“I loved my path and the way I came through but if I was giving a youngster advice, getting first team games [in the Irish League] under you belt so young really does help when you come to England,” he said.
“It would have taken Sykesy a couple of months to settle in and then get used to the standard, but if like him you are doing so well in the Irish League, it shouldn’t be that much of a bother when you go to the English game.”
That said, the Blues rookie admits he got his eyes opened to what is required at the most rarefied level of the game when his Birmingham under-18s, supposedly one of the best in the country, were coolly outclassed by a Chelsea side featuring the likes of current first teamers Callum Hudson-Odoi and Billy Gilmour.
“They were a joke,” laughed Boyd-Munce. “I was used to playing international football, I played against Spain, Belgium, Germany, France… but that team was next level again.
“We played them over two legs and we got beat 7-0 and our 18s were one of the top teams in the country, but that Chelsea team were too much.
“As stupid as it sounds, as much as I was two years into my scholar, I was still behind in every way, maturity wise, physically, tactically.
“Those boys were so much quicker, sharper, tactically more superior to us, just everything.
“It was just one of those things you had to watch the game back again after it to see if it actually happened the way you thought it did.”