By John Harrington

As heart-warming sporting tales of the unexpected go, the story of Collins Ugochukwu making his debut this year for the Laois senior footballers after just one season of playing club football is right up there.

The man himself is as struck by the unlikeliness of it all as anyone.

“I was shocked,” he says with a big grin and a shake of his head.

“I remember when my Courtwood manager messaged me saying Billy Sheehan was looking for you to be involved this year, I was like, 'Billy, are you sure now? You know I only started playing this year?' And he was like, 'yeah, I've seen you play, you're okay.'

“I was like, 'are you sure you don't want to give me another year and see then', but Billy believed in me and I thought if you believe in me, why not? I'll give it a shot. And now I'm here talking to you guys.”

How Collins Ugochukwu came to rediscover Gaelic Football again in Laois in his mid-twenties having last played it as a teenager with Sarsfields in Kildare is one of the more positive Covid-19 pandemic stories you’ll hear.

A talented soccer player, after learning his trade with Newbridge Town he had stints with Bohemians and Hibernians in Scotland before most recently playing for Crawley Town in England.

He was ready to sign a new contract there when Covid-19 hit, and suddenly his professional football career came juddering to a halt.

“Me and my partner were coming back to Ireland for a visit and basically two days before we came back lockdown happened and everything closed even over in the UK. So the football just completely stopped and everything was just up in the air.

“At the time I was waiting on a new contract with the club I was playing with and everything literally just stopped all of a sudden. No-one knew what was going to happen because we didn't know how long things were going to be closed for. No-one was allowed to meet anyone, you couldn't really do anything.

“I just thought I'd give it two months and hopefully things would pass and I'd be back over. But then sure we were in lockdown for two years. I didn't know what was going to happen so at the time the local GAA club started training collectively and my father in law was saying to me would you like to train with us just to get your fitness up. And that was it then. I was stuck here and stuck with the club (laughs).”

Ugochukwu was a very talented Gaelic Football in his youth for Sarsfields, captaining them to a League and Championship double in the minor grade even though he only started playing the sport when he was 13.

But he hadn’t kicked a size five O’Neills in over eight years when he rocked up to his first Courtwood training session, so understandably his Gaelic skills were a little rusty to begin with.

“Very rusty! Very, very rusty!”, he laughs. “They're similar sports but they're different obviously. You have to kick from your hands and you have to catch the ball and all of that stuff. The pitch is bigger too. I was quite rusty at the start but the boys helped me the whole way through.

“I was quite rusty and it took a while for it to come back and I'm still learning now. I'm getting there so hopefully in one more year I'll be flying it.”

Even though his basic skills needed some work, one thing immediately became apparent to everyone in Coutwood – Collins was a natural defender.

Lighting fast, fearless, and limpet-like in his ability to stick to an opposition forward, the man was a nightmare to be marked by.

“Oh yeah, that's one of the things I'm good at. Stopping a guy from playing and taking him out of the game. Sometimes that takes me out of the game but I'm happy to do that for the team because if a lad like that gets going, they can be hard to stop.

“I like doing that because we're all on a team. If we win, I win, so I'm happy. It doesn't matter about individuals. I try get involved in the game as well but I try to make sure the man I'm marking doesn't get anywhere either. And I really do enjoy that.”

Such was the impact Collins made in training that Courtwood manager Eddie Kinsella was confident enough to throw him in at the deep-end by naming him in the starting XV for their first round championship match against Portlaoise.

Not only that, he was given the task marking the opposition’s best player, Garrett Dillon, and did such a good job in that match and the ones that followed that Laois manager Billy Sheehan was also convinced this diamond in the rough could cut it at the highest level of the game.

“When I went in with Laois, Billy started from scratch with me teaching me the basics and that helped my game a lot. I learned a lot under Billy

“I'd come along to training half and hour earlier and he'd do some basic stuff with me. Kicking and catching, all that kind of stuff, the skills that you need to play at that level of football. We worked really hard together and then we did it collectively too with the rest of the team.

“We started from scratch and built it back up. The physical part of it wasn't as tough for me, it was the skills part that was the difficult part. Because when I played football I'm a defender so you have to be able to hit a guy.

“I know, yes, you can't hit them as hard as in Gaelic, but you can still give them a tug now and again. It was more the skills part that I found tough, really. I'm working on it every day with the boys back in the club so I'm improving. Hopefully I can improve to the standard I want to get to so I can achieve something.”

Collins isn’t currently a member of the Laois panel for the Championship, but hopes to be back representing his adopted county in the not too distant future.

“I had to step down for personal reasons,” he says. “I still keep in contact with Billy and the management. We're still very close. Hopefully when the personal thing has been sorted out I can get back playing with Laois. I don't know if it'll be this year but hopefully next year i'll back with the county team.

“But I have to perform with the club team this year again in the Championship to get back in there. We'll see how it goes.”

He’s been made feel so welcome in Courtwood that he’s convinced GAA clubs can be vibrant hubs of inclusivity and diversity in Ireland.

“It would be lovely to see more people with different backgrounds and different cultures joining the sport because it's the biggest sport in Ireland.

“So it would be nice to mix it up. Hopefully, with me joining in, other people in all different kinds of races can get involved. I was quite lucky with Sarsfields, they brought me in, they made me feel welcome and happy straight away.

“So the clubs have an important role, they have to pull lads in and welcome them in.”

“I’ve never experienced racial stuff in Gaelic, luckily. Gaelic has always been great and welcoming for me because I feel a lot of clubs do want lads from other cultures to be involved.

“Some lads don't try to reach up to the top level. After underage, they stop playing. But no, racism has been no problem for me. Listen, personal issues yeah, there's racism everywhere. Some people would do it without even knowing it but I haven't seen it in Gaelic, which is great.”

He’s the first ever Nigerian-born footballer to represent Laois so is a great role-model for the sizeable migrant community in the Midlands.

And such has been the positive response he’s gotten since donning the Laois jersey, he’s more than happy to be an inspiration for others.

“Even now in club games, people would come over and talk to me. A lot of the Courtwood people are proud of the jump I've made. And kids are coming over looking for pictures and a chat.

“That's great to be that kind of figure to them. That's what I would like to be, to be involved in the community like that and to help as much as I can.”