*Éire Óg’s Ikem Ugwueru. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CHASING THAT winning feeling has Ikem Ugwueru primed for battle as Éire Óg look to win a fourth Clare SFC in five seasons.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SFC is with thanks to The Shannon Springs Hotel.
Ikem has been ever-present in Éire Óg’s recent dominance of gaelic football in the county and has also established himself as one of the central players on the Clare team.
Growing up in Ennis where he attended Scoil Chríost Rí and St Flannan’s College, Ikem excelled in a wide rang of sports including athletics, rugby, soccer, gaelic football and judo. “Judo that was the odd one thrown in, I did judo for quite a while, it was pretty good and it helped me with my tacking for rugby and obviously for football too when you’re grabbling people,” he recalled.
It may have taken former Clare manager Colm Collins until the fourth time asking Ikem to join the county panel to get a positive response. He didn’t happen to know who Collins was when he first received the call but he hasn’t looked back since linking in with Clare in 2021. “I always played it throughout but it was the year I came in with Clare, the COVID year was the year I really started to take it serious but I didn’t take it serious until halfway through that season because I didn’t know where I was at, it wasn’t until Colm was telling me where I could go that I said ‘this is kind of going okay so I’ll stick with it and see where I can go’”.
Clare football’s tight-knit nature is what swung it for Ikem to choose gaelic over rugby. “The community, the way everyone is so close and there is such a good bond between team and management. People have different experiences in rugby and soccer but from what I experienced, management can be a bit cold to players but the players group is usually good, the management of player wasn’t really the best in my experience. With football, my relationship with Colm, Paul (Madden) when he was with Éire Óg and Shane (Daniels) now, even with Mark Fitz and Peter Keane it was very good, that was my main draw to it,” he told The Clare Echo.
Winning with Éire Óg has given him a special buzz and it is one he is determined to replicate on Sunday against St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield. “Ever since I won the first one in 2021 that feeling I’ve always wanted to feel that with Éire Óg, that is what motivating us, some people would be content with one and they feel that one is enough but I’ve never been like that, if you’re able to get a chance to go out and get another one you aim to get another one because you never know when your season or career might end, whenever you have an opportunity to win something you go for it, I feel like it is the same for any athlete in any sport, it will be a tough game because it won’t be the same as when we played them in the group, you have to be honest and be in tune with reality because they will come out with a whole different plan and teamsheet”.
He had been playing AIL with Shannon RFC and was lining out with Munster from U15 to the Academy while he was part of the Kennedy Cup soccer side with fellow Éire Óg footballers Colm Walsh O’Loghlen and Gavin Cooney before focusing solely on football.
Introduced as a substitute in Éire Óg’s 2021 county final 1-11 0-9 win over Kilmurry Ibrickane but he’s nailed down a starting spot at club and county since then. “That day it’s funny, I actually had a rugby game, I came from a rugby game, I made it for half time and Paul brought me on, the super sub at the time, it’s pretty fun how things have evolved over the years, I’m grateful. At the time I was taking the rugby very serious, I was in Shannon playing AIL, it is basically professional, it is just under the Munster boys and it was pretty intense, I was actually injured at the time so I managed to just strap the shoulder and keep going”.
Injuries were more common with rugby than football, he noted. “I’ve been lucky enough with football that it hasn’t been too bad, I picked up something with Clare this year which was my only major setback, it was like a four week layoff with a slight groin tear, that is the worst I’ve done in football. I’ve done the bulk of my injuries in rugby, I did shoulder, groin and I fractured my ankle, now I have a bit of tendonitis but it is nothing, it is all a load injury, it is being able to balance the load so other than that it is fine”.
Balancing the load can become more difficult with a limited off-season for inter-county players that find themselves in the business end of the club championship. “There is a window but when you get the window you don’t really know when it is coming, it is when you get knocked out so you can’t plan for stuff and by then your other friends already have stuff planned so it might be too last minute for you to join and you’d be spending extra to what they are spending so it is tough. I had a chance to go somewhere, I went to London and I went to France, they were last minute so I spent a bit more but it was alright, I had to get out and clear the head. I’ve had an achilles issue too so sometimes you don’t have enough time you just have to make the most of what you have and come back in and buy into the system because I didn’t want to spend too much time out and come in later than the other boys, I like getting to work”.
Switching off for Ikem is helped by the fact the majority of his friends are not overly into sport. “Most of my friends, I’m the only one that plays sport in my other friend group, they are always up and about whether it is going places for walks or going for hikes, they might go the cinema or bowling, they are always good for that, things like that is what I do with them, going for coffee and stuff so I’m grateful that they are active in that sense so that’s what I do to shut off”.
He explained, “That is the good thing about having my friends, they don’t play as much sport as I do, they can take my head away from it, they also understand that coming up to a big game they don’t want me to get too stressed so they will always bring up suggestions of things to do or hop on the phone and chat about other stuff, about work and college, stuff happening around the world or whatever, I don’t like to get too bogged down, the only time I worry about the game is when I come training and then the day before the game making sure everything is right”.
Next month, Ikem turns twenty six, he is the eldest of Ifeoma and Festus’ six children. Though he has achieved a lot on the sporting front, his younger sister Chisom who plays rugby with Munster, UL Bohs and has represented the Irish 7s tends to get a lot of the spotlight, he quipped. “She takes all the limelight so I can slip up a bit and they won’t look at me too much, she can take the reins. As an older brother that is what you want, for your younger siblings to outshine you, I’m grateful that her and my other brother are doing something too, she also pushes me too which is what you want in a family of athletes, she continues to push me, I push her and the younger fella will push us too because he is coming up too and we don’t want him to over shine us too much”.
As the eldest child, he noted “I’m the oldest of the six, I’ve a little bit of responsibility but I feel like I’ve done okay so far”. His younger brother Kosi has signed for Ennis Dons this season so there may be a potential face-off if the clubs play each other during Ikem’s limited off-season. “We’ll see, I was back for the last game we played against them but he didn’t play unfortunately because he just came back from Germany. I might go play a bit of footie but not too much because whenever I go back they always make me do all the running because they know I’ve the most legs on the team”.
Helping with the running is his extensive collection of boots. “That is what most of my money goes on, I already have my mind set on my next pair of boots, I’m waiting to see, I was going to try get it before the final but I was like don’t do too much because there’s a pair of boots that I haven’t worn at all, I need to wear them too before I get another pair, any new Nike boot, a Nike Vapor or Tiempo that comes out I’m just on that and have to try get it”.
Buying boots is his addiction, Ikem confessed, “The ones I have now, I had them before the Munster final, that is probably the longest I’ve had a boot, that’s four months. Whoever likes boots they understand where I’m coming from, my parents don’t understand at all because the delivery man would be coming to the door the whole time and it’s like ‘for Ikem, for Ikem, for Ikem’ and they are like ‘what is going on’, it’s the boots man, they are needed”.
Ugwueru is one of the GAA’s role models and it’s why for the past three years he has been an ambassador for SuperValu’s Community Includes Everyone Campaign. It comes as no surprise then that his former teacher Gary Brennan has brought Ikem on board as St Flannan’s College’s strength and conditioning coach with their Corn Uí Mhuirí footballers.
Coaching has been a “different” experience, he admitted. “It is harder than you think, when you see coaches coaching you might think it is easy but no it is different when you’re having people listen and buy into what you are saying, more often than not if they believe what you are saying then they will buy into it, that is the tricky bit but I am enjoying it”.
He’s thankful that he hasn’t had to coach anyone similar to himself. “Jees, if I had to coach someone like myself I would have a tough time but everyone I’ve coached so far has been pretty good and pretty attentive so I’ve had no stubborn kids yet, please God it stays the same”.
Focus switches back to Sunday and getting to the county final was always the target for Éire Óg, he said. “100 percent definitely, we didn’t have any other alternative outcome, it was what our mind was set on but we didn’t want to think too far ahead because you never know what could happen, look at 2023 we thought too far ahead and we got too ahead of ourselves so we obviously slipped up, we didn’t want a repeat this year so we took it game by game and it seems to have worked out so we’re happy to be in a final again”.
