The Irishman with a thick Black Country accent - The story behind Dudley's Ben Healy and his decision to represent Ireland at cycling

Ben Healy is Black Country and proud, with a distinct Dudley accent and the memories of his time at Halesowen Athletics and Cycling Club still fresh, but represents his paternal grandfather's nation competitively.

When Healy moved into the lead of the 2025 Tour de France after stage 10 he became the first rider from the Black Country to don the iconic yellow jersey, while also becoming just the fourth 'Irishman' and the first since 1987 to lead the race in it's 112 year history.

Peter Hall, chairman of cycling at Healy's former club, says everyone involved at Halesowen is extremely proud of the 24-year-old's achievements, and revealed the real reason why he made the choice to honour his Irish roots.

"British cycling decided not to take him on - I don't know why but for some reason they didn't take him into their development system - so he decided to get Irish accreditation through his grandparents," Hall said. "It means he can ride in the Olympics and the World Championships in Irish colours, which is a bit annoying for us who know he's grown up around here when we hear the commentators say: here's the Irishman Ben Healy.' Then they interview him and he's got a broad Black Country accent, it's funny, but lovely really.

"What he's done in the tour is absolutely unbelievable, and even by the standards of professional cycling what he does is incredible.

"He just rides off the front and that doesn't happen in professional cycling very often. You need to be absolutely incredibly talented to do what he's doing, and what he's doing is very unusual and amazing really."

Healy's association with Halesowen Cycling Club remains strong though, and despite leaving for Solihull at the age of 11 he returned regularly for club races, events and celebrations, where he showed just how much progress he had made in his time away.

"He's stayed in touch with the club and actually won our road race, which we hold every year, in 2017, so his name is actually on the trophy," Mr Hall explained. "He rode off the front in that race and this is when he was about 16 which is pretty young to be doing that, and quite unusual for someone so young to be able to do it against people who are a lot older.

"David Feiven [Healy's junior coach at Halesowen Cycling Club] said he thinks that once Ben got to about 14 years old it became apparent that he had a super talent.

"We gave him freedom of the track after he won a stage of the Tour of Italy which is a very big race, so at that point we said if you ever want to come down and train at Manor Way you'd be more than welcome.

"It's a minor thing really but we wanted to show our appreciation really, and we're very proud of him.

"He lives in Girona in Spain now so it all depends how often he comes back, but we'd love to get something done and bring him down to the track once the tour is over.

"Particularly for all of the kids at our club it would be fantastic to get him down to one of our junior sessions on a Saturday afternoon. That would be unbelievable."