How a chance meeting kickstarted Chris O’Loughlin’s football career

Life can often swing on major decisions where taking a right or left turn at certain junctures can bring wildly different outcomes, or in Chris O’Loughlin’s case, whether you take the stairs or the lift.
Union's Chris O'Loughlin pictured with head coach Thomas Christiansen and Union's chairman of the board Alex Muzio. (NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP via Getty Images)Union's Chris O'Loughlin pictured with head coach Thomas Christiansen and Union's chairman of the board Alex Muzio. (NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP via Getty Images)
Union's Chris O'Loughlin pictured with head coach Thomas Christiansen and Union's chairman of the board Alex Muzio. (NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP via Getty Images)

Having spent time in Northern Ireland with Cliftonville Reserves and Larne, a knee injury had resulted in O’Loughlin focusing more heavily on matters away from the pitch in order to provide for his young family.

Sitting at his desk at the Halifax Gasworks in Belfast, he thought any serious involvement in the sport he loved was over. After all, he didn’t have an interest in coaching.

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It was just like any other day when O’Loughlin was making his way back from lunch to deal “with mundane phone calls with people who were angry about having direct debit charges” when the building lift was taking too long, so he decided the stairs would suffice that afternoon.

That was where he would run into an Islandmagee team-mate who suggested heading back to Larne to undertake his coaching badges, and while initially shrugging off the idea, it turns out that is a conversation that sparked a career which has brought him around Africa, Australia and beyond.

The 42-year-old is now sporting director at Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, who currently sit top of Belgium’s second division and are seemingly on their way to promotion back to the top-flight.

“There were so many people working there and a lot from the Irish League and amateur football,” he said.

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“At the time I was playing at Islandmagee. We had an unbelievable side that was full of ex-Irish League players and I had stopped because I got a bad knee injury and I had two young babies so I had to focus on working.

“I always thought to myself why would anyone want to be a coach?

“There were these lifts that would bring you back up and for some reason they were taking so long so I just took the stairs back up.

“I ran into a guy who played for Islandmagee and was at Manchester United in his youth. He was a nice guy and we were talking about my knee and he said would I not get into coaching?

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“I said it wasn’t for me but he told me at Larne they were doing the UEFA B license and I would get on it no problem. By chance, I had done my mini and junior team awards and I don’t even know why I did it.

“I phoned Jim (Hagan) and I got onto the UEFA B license. It was nine weeks every Sunday from 9am-4pm and you had to commit. I also completed both my UEFA A and UEFA Pro Licence with the IFA.

“On the first day, Neville Southall arrived and we never saw him again!

“That’s how it all started. A chance meeting unlocked something in my brain. If I had gone up in the lift, never saw David and he didn’t get me thinking, it may never have happened.”

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The journey to the office he sits in now has been far from easy or straightforward for O’Loughlin, who moved to South Africa at the age of five and stayed in Cape Town until 18.

Sacrifice and determination are the themes for him, leaving behind family to go in search of his own opportunities and he does feel a small sense of regret despite it all eventually working out.

“I left Cape Town one month out of school to go to London and didn’t understand how London worked,” he added.

“The reality is that I had to do it. I couldn’t go to clubs in England and say: ‘Here’s my CV. I played 300 times in the Premier League, Championship or League One’.

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“I always had to create opportunities. It took me away from home a lot and it’s probably why I got to where I am today because I had to make all these sacrifices and it wasn’t always easy.

“I could write a book about my time in Congo. I travelled all around Africa too when we played in the Champions League.

“When Liverpool or Manchester United travel, it’s all correct but when you travel in Africa to play away in Algeria for example, other things can make it quite difficult.

“Things weren’t always easy and it was horrible being away from my wife and kids, but at the time you’re so fixated and focused. As a 42-year-old now, I have regrets.

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“Although it’s part of my journey to where I am today, I would like to think with hindsight that I could have done it differently, but maybe I couldn’t have because I had to travel.

“You see on my Wikipedia that I’ve been in Congo, Charlton, Belfast – I had to make every opportunity. In 2010, I couldn’t find anything but I travelled everywhere.

“I travelled to Serbia to go and see matches there and meet people. I travelled to Narbonne in France where there was a Fourth Division team.

“I travelled to Portugal, Holland just networking and trying to make things happen.

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“Even in Belgium I met someone in 2010 on my way to Valenciennes when I was going to meet another person.

“That person that I spent an evening with speaking about football over dinner contacted me three years later to come to Belgium.”

Over O’Loughlin’s left shoulder you can see six framed football shirts on the wall, including former Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet who owns a coffee shop nearby and Shane Long, which was presented to him as a gift from the FAI after they brought a coaching group to observe Union SG.

There is one that particularly piques my interest however and that is Jim Magilton’s Northern Ireland shirt from an international against Spain in 1998.

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Just like O’Loughlin, Magilton is now a sporting director too having recently been appointed in the position at Dundalk and the pair worked together at Melbourne Victory and also during a brief period in the Northern Ireland youth set-up.

“Jim has been good to me.

“He probably opened a lot of doors for me because my football background was very much based in Africa.

“When we moved back, my wife and I were married in Belfast in 2004 and we left in 2005 to South Africa for me to get into coaching.

“I felt that if I wanted to make a career that I needed to go to South Africa where I had played a bit and it was a professional league.

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“I thought with the UEFA B licence that it would be a great place to start so we spent a few years there and then moved back to Northern Ireland in October 2009.

“Jim was at Queens Park Rangers at the time and I knew someone in Belfast that knew him who arranged for me to go over and spend a few days with him.

“I got to know Jim and when he came back to Belfast we reconnected and grew the football relationship.”

O’Loughlin’s current job is different to the others he has held with very little emphasis placed on coaching and more on leading a project that ultimately sees promotion and re-establishing themselves in the top tier as the end goal, although he does still keep himself ticking over by “taking the reserve team once a week”.

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“There are definitely times that I miss going onto the pitch, especially at the beginning.

“It’s funny because when I started, I came off the pitch on the Wednesday, started on a Thursday and it was the end of the season.

“Six weeks later the players came back and the manager resigned on the same day because he went to Ligue 1 in France. I was back on the pitch for a week or two while we were looking for a manager.

“Our goal is always promotion.

“It’s quite a traditional club in Belgium and has a lot of history attached to it. It’s still third on the table for total titles won in Belgium’s First Division so we really want to get back up.

“We are an ambitious club with great support and there’s a big project behind it with the owners from England. We really want to get back to the First Division.”

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