A ball can change a life

As Ireland’s male & female teams prepare for the Street soccer Homeless World Cup Jennifer May met up with some of the male players who will represent Ireland.

It’s a boiling hot day, with clear blue skies the heat rippling off the streets, shimmering on the pavements. Nevertheless, on the five aside pitch at Pearse Street, a group of footballers are doing warm up stretches and rigorous ball exercises that would leave even professional football players on their knees.  The lad’s dedication suggest they have a lot to lose, which of course they do, considering these are the players that will be representing Ireland in this year’s Homeless World Cup to be held in Oslo, Norway’s capital, August 23/29. 

The Street Soccer League - originally set up to support young men affected by issues such as addiction, unemployment and homelessness - has become a powerfully effective tool in supporting these people back into mainstream society. Since the inaugural match held in Graz, Austria in 2003, Street Soccer League organiser and Ireland’s Issues Editor Sean Kavanagh has witnessed many success stories and life-affirming changes bought about through the positive power of football. It is this which keeps him dedicated to a project that, on a yearly basis, often suffers a severe lack of funding, but which he says, always pays dividends.

‘It’s easy to forget that all these players have experienced many obstacles in their lives, but have managed to put them all to one side, to get here,’ says Kavanagh.  ‘They deal with all the traumas  associated with homelessness, addiction, unemployment and are often left on the outside of life, looking in, with no proper opportunities offered for them to make positive change.’ 

 Graham Tucker trainer agrees. His life has changed completely since he represented Ireland in Mexico at the 2010 World Cup, and he now mentors’ other young people, running the Street Leagues as well as his full-time job working within the prison service. ‘There is a great community bond here within the team,’ he says. ‘It is that support system which is so important in keeping each other on track. All the lads come from similar backgrounds – they understand each other - having been through the same stuff. This gives them a confidence they didn’t have before.’

While there is also a super women’s team representing Ireland in Oslo, this year’s men’s’ team has a great mix of young and older players – the youngest being only twenty years of age, and the oldest more than two decades older.  Jackie  is an incredibly youthful looking forty-seven, especially considering the difficult life he’s had.  Born in Belfast during the height of the Troubles, he came from a dysfunctional family background, marred by violence and neglect. ‘I had abusive parents,’ he says with a brutal honesty. ‘I had a very traumatic childhood.’  

‘I started on petrol at about the age of eleven,’ he recalls, ‘and moved on from there until I was using a lot of drugs’

Joseph, Scott & Jackie

These harrowing early life lessons led to substance use at a very early age, as Jackie discovered very young that this was the most efficient way of blocking out pain. ‘I started on petrol at about the age of eleven,’ he recalls, ‘and moved on from there until I was using a lot of drugs. It was socially acceptable, something everyone was doing, but it escalated very quickly.’  

Forced to leave Belfast after he was kidnapped and shot by paramilitaries, Jackie ended up in Wexford at the age of 15, still a child, and forced to start a new life for himself.  While he always used drugs as his comfort blanket, he was also someone who needed success, and would do whatever he had to, to get what he now realises was the emptiness of financial success. ‘I had to have everything, had to get everything, but I realised that it was killing me, my cocaine use was killing me, that I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I reached out to a family friend and asked for help,’ he says. 

This was the best thing he could have done for himself, and started Jackie on the long road to recovery, going into Cuan Mhuire for treatment, which he said, awoke all the feelings and emotions he had been avoiding for many years. On leaving treatment he continued to engage with services, attending Soilse addiction rehabilitation based in Dublin city centre. ‘I learned a lot there,’ he says, clearly crediting Soilse with the remarkable changes he has made in his life (and he is not the only one who seems to have found brilliant support in Henrietta Street). ‘They offered me counselling, psychotherapy; I learned to have a relationship with myself. I learned to have a relationship with my kids.’

Being involved with the street leagues has also been a godsend for Jackie. ‘They have helped me a million per cent,’ he says with a wide grin. ‘Tucker and Mary, Sean – they’re incredible people. I wake up feeling gratitude every single morning.’
 
‘I’m telling my story to help others,’ says Joseph, ‘so they can have the knowledge.’

Limerick-born Joseph  is also thrilled to be representing Ireland and getting that opportunity to wear the green jersey, laughing that he’s ‘well able to run around like a twenty-year-old’ at the tender age of 44.  Like his team-mates he began using drugs from the age of ten. Although he loved football and showed promise he says there was no discipline and he was abusing solvents which quickly led onto other heavier substances. ‘I’m telling my story to help others,’ says Joseph, ‘so they can have the knowledge.’  Moving to Boston, he witnessed the virulent effects of crack cocaine. ‘It decimated whole areas,’ he says, ‘crack addiction is mental torture.’ 

Moving back to Ireland bought more trauma, as Joseph found himself separated from his son, who he had been parenting alone, when his ex-partner took the child back to the US. During this time his beloved foster-parent also passed away. By then he was using heroin, and on the roundabout of serving time in prison, being released and then imprisoned again. In 2023 he was given probation and went to Priorswood House, a transitional supported housing, run by PACE.  Staff here worked with Joseph, supporting him through his recovery journey, and he slowly weaned himself off all substances, including methadone. ‘I detoxed off everything,’ he says. ‘I have now been off everything for over a year.’ 

A friend introduced him to the Friday night street league in St Catherines, and from there, it was only a short stop to him being picked to represent Ireland in the World Cup.  ‘I want to go and I want to win,’ he laughs. ‘My inner child comes out and I’m determined that we can win.’ There has been another brilliant outcome for Joseph, the culmination perhaps of all his hard effort. ‘I saw my daughter for the first time in twelve years,’ he smiles. ‘That means everything to me. 

‘It was natural to me,’ he explains. ‘We all took drugs, got involved in petty crime. It was the norm’.

Scott  is the youngest player on the team and is affectionately known as the Team Baby.  A soft-spoken young man with a deprecating smile, he says he always loved football and as a child could be found kicking around a ball, although mostly on his own.  ‘I loved my own company’ he says, admitting that parental problems would have led him seek solace in drugs from an early age, and ended up homeless at the age of seventeen. There was also the peer pressure around Clondalkin and Tallaght. ‘It was natural to me,’ he explains. ‘We all took drugs, got involved in petty crime. It was the norm.’ 

Scott  is the youngest player on the team and is affectionately known as the Team Baby.  A soft-spoken young man with a deprecating smile, he says he always loved football and as a child could be found kicking around a ball, although mostly on his own.  ‘I loved my own company’ he says, admitting that parental problems would have led him seek solace in drugs from an early age, and ended up homeless at the age of seventeen. There was also the peer pressure around Clondalkin and Tallaght. ‘It was natural to me,’ he explains. ‘We all took drugs, got involved in petty crime. It was the norm.’ 

Whilst working night shifts, occasional use of cocaine spiralled out of control and Scott found himself suffering from psychosis bought about by his cocaine use. ‘I actually loved that feeling’ he admits, ‘The feeling of psychosis made me escape myself. I packed my bags, left my place, floating around Clondalkin for about a year, living off biscuits, with no-where to go.’ 
On a bus one evening a girl, obviously concerned about his presentation gave Scott a card with a phone number for Coolmine (residential treatment centre) on it. He didn’t use it, but a year later, having reached his lowest point, Scott ended up in hospital after trying to take his own life.  ‘I remembered that card,’ he said, ‘I’d been carrying it round the whole time even though I hadn’t used it.’ The staff from Coolmine recognized that Scott would not survive unless there was some serious intervention, so offered him a place in their residential recovery centre, almost immediately. This was the catalyst for change that he needed so badly.
‘I am graduating in September and cannot believe how far I have come,’ grins Scott. ‘Then Graham let me join the street leagues, and I can’t believe I’m here representing Ireland in the World Cup.’ Does he think they can bring the Cup back from Norway? 
‘One hundred percent,’ he says with a smile. 

www.irishstreetleague.com

Joseph, Scott and Jackie

Congratulations and best wishes to Ireland in the Homeless World Cup, Oslo, Aug 2025