Ikem Ugwueru thriving after finally accepting Clare call
CLARE CALL: Clare footballer Ikem Ugwueru at SuperValu’s launch of the GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and its #CommunityIncludesEveryone campaign. Pic Credit: Dan Sheridan, Inpho.
Blessed with wicked pace, it was probably no surprise that Ikem Ugwueru played hard to get.
The Dublin-born 24-year-old had been screening Colm Collins’ calls before he eventually joined the Clare set-up in 2021.
“I said ‘no’ to him three times and then one call I didn’t pick up,” he smiles sheepishly.
“Because I knew he was going to ask me again and I didn’t want to say ‘no’ again so I just said I’d ignore him.
“Then when I did come in the year after, he reminded me of the call – ‘Did you get that call off me the last time?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Don’t you ever decline a call from me again.’ So I never did!
“He always saw potential in me, even if I didn’t see it in myself. Same as my coach with Éire Óg, Paul Madden. He saw potential in me too but I didn’t see it. I was playing rugby (as a hooker with Shannon).
"They were like, ‘If you give this a full crack, you never know where this might go with it. Then I decided to give it a full shot and here we are now.”
Collins’ relentlessness paid off but in particular for his successor Mark Fitzgerald as Ugwueru has cemented his position in the Clare team, assuming a leadership role after a litany of retirements in the off-season.
For all the players they have lost, there’s a maturity about this Banner set-up. Being bold enough to toss for the venue was leadership on Fitzgerald’s part but moving on from the injustice done to them in the Division 3 game against Westmeath, as difficult as it might have been, was another noble approach.
Ultimately, that disallowed Cormac Murray goal in Mullingar denied them promotion. It was a setback they had to absorb, recalls Ugwueru.
“It was difficult but these things happen in sport. Referees are human at the end of the day. They make mistakes. We didn’t like the way that our season was determined on a referee’s decision. We wanted it all to be in our control.
“It was disappointing but we have to park that. You can’t always have a fairytale ending. The way we see it is, we tried our best. No one backed us. We almost got promoted, which is fine. We’re still blooding in new fellas.
"Even me, we feel like it’s time a few of us stepped up. We just have to keep going. We have to park that and focus on the (Munster) final now.”
The no-excuses mentality extends to Clare’s pre-championship camp, which took place not in The Algarve’s Quinta do Lago where Kerry did their preparations but Lahinch.
“Lads can go to Portugal, they can go to Spain,” says Ugwueru. “That’s down the county boards to take them where they can go. That’s fine. We can’t be crying about it.”
The wing back was a 59th minute substitute in last year’s Munster final loss in Limerick. By then, Kerry were so far ahead they were thinking of Mayo in the first round of the Sam Maguire Cup.
“I feel like we kind of let the occasion get the better of us and we were kind of afraid of what Kerry would do to us and didn’t really worry about our own game.
“That’s just a player thing, it happens sometimes and I feel like this time we won’t focus on too much outside noise and just ourselves, so that’s what we are doing right now.”
Being written off is something that motivated him as part of an Éire Óg, Ennis team that won back-to-back senior county titles in 2021 and ’22.
“People used to say to us that townies were soft, and I always like, ‘When did this start?’ I wouldn't have seen myself as a softie. Like, I’m a nice guy, but if you are saying it in that way, then fair enough, but if you are saying softie on the pitch, I don’t think so.
“Whenever we play West Clare teams, that’s when I’d turn up the most because it would be them and their supporters calling us soft and I’m like, ‘Okay, I guess I have to show you I’m not soft then,’ so yeah, it’s fine. I have friends on those teams as well, so it’s always good to play against those teams too.”
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