Wesley Charles has certainly come a long way in his soccer career. He speaks to Robert Carry about his rise from a poor upbringing in the Caribbean to his current role as captain of Galway United
Galway is a long way from the tiny Caribbean archipelago of St Vincent and the Grenadines. You’ve probably never heard of the place, but a large chunk of Vincentians haven’t heard of us either. At least that was the case with St Vincent–born Galway United captain Wesley Charles, before he first made the trip across the Atlantic.
The 16-stone, 6'3" giant started playing soccer as a child in a rural area of his idyllic island home, where the sport is a pastime for many but a profession for none.
“At home we don’t have a professional league,” says the defender. “People play football for fun.”
Charles was among them, and after playing for a string of local clubs he was picked up by the Brighton All Stars as a 15-year-old in 1991. Oddly, he started his career at the club as a goalkeeper, but his performances eventually attracted the attention of the national set-up. He went on to line out for the under-16s, for whom he kept a number of clean sheets, before switching position to defender in time to earn a full outfield cap on the senior team in 1994. “Getting to play for my country was the proudest moment of my career,” Charles remembers.
Unfortunately, the postcard-perfect appearance of Charles’ home island gives little indication of the poverty endured by many of its inhabitants. Unemployment is rife, and this made the call from England in 1996 that Charles received at the home he shared with his 13 siblings all the more significant.
English League Division 2 outfit Bury FC’s interest had been pricked by the Vincentian’s international performances, and they wanted him to fly over for a trial. But sadly, Charles’ hopes of a switch to a professional European league were dashed when he was refused a work permit.
A second call came in from Torquay, for whom Charles commenced training, but again, bureaucracy and red tape prevented him from taking to the pitch, and he was forced home for a second time.
“I was very disappointed,” he recalls. “I couldn’t get a work permit at Bury and then it happened again at Torquay. That was a very frustrating time.”
Happily, the debacle with the English clubs was not Charles’ last chance of becoming a professional footballer ¬ just two weeks after he jetted home, Sligo Rovers expressed an interest.
“I had never heard of Ireland,” says Charles. “The first time I heard of it was when I was training at Torquay. A few lads were told me that an ex-Torquay boss was managing a team over here and they suggested I try to get him to sign me.”
Nonetheless, a month later he was sitting in the stands watching Sligo play St Pats. “As soon as I stepped off the plane in Dublin it was lashing rain,” he recalls. “It was still raining when I watched my first game here.”
Despite the weather, Charles was impressed by the standard of football on display. “It was a good match and I enjoyed it. The atmosphere was great,” he says. “St Pats beat Sligo 4–1 that night, but Pats scored some nice goals. One of them was from just over the half-way line.”
As well as playing for Sligo Rovers and at his current club, Charles lined out for Bray Wanderers. He also managed to fit in a loan spell in Russia’s top division with FC Rostov. “The standard was very high there and everybody played full time,” says the international. “I would have liked it to have worked out for me there but the owner sold the club soon after I arrived, and the chairman who brought me there left. He was the one who wanted me to stay so I had to come back.”
Charles returned to an Irish league that was undergoing rapid changes. “Since I came here in 1998 the standard has raised a hell of a lot,” he points out. “There are more technical players here now, and people think about games more. You used to have a few games where teams would like to play football, and the rest you would have people trying to play the long ball all the time.
“But now that so many of the teams here are going into full-time, this has all changed. The long ball game is on the way out and everybody is wanting to play football.”
But despite the advances made, Charles feels the FAI could do more to help develop the domestic game and he believes that children are the key to increasing support for the league.
“The FAI should work with the clubs to help get kids more involved,” he says. “A lot of clubs need a better youth structure, and if that was in place then the kids could come and watch the games and get involved with the club in other ways.
“If the kids watch the games then so will the parents, and eventually you might end up with a situation where kids will be more interested in the Irish league than the [English] Premiership.
“Every kid has a Man United jersey or Liverpool jersey, but there’s very few wearing Galway United or Sligo jerseys. That has to change.”
At the moment the player is enjoying life at Galway – the first club at which he’s been a fully permanent, full-time professional soccer player. Charles says: “It’s a big challenge, playing full-time. In a way I played full-time before in Bray because I would train in the morning by myself, but this is different. The standard of the training pitches [at Galway United] is excellent and the training is great. The manager knows what he wants and every day he tries to teach you something different.”
Life beyond football is also going well, and Charles is impressed by his new West of Ireland home. “It’s a lovely city,” he says. “It’s quiet enough but you always have something to do and somewhere to go.”
He likes it so much, in fact, that he has decided he would like to run out his playing days there. “I think I will stay with Galway until I finish my career. As long as they want me, I’m happy to stay around.”
Home may be a long way away, but Wesley Charles still makes the international squad, and he has been invited back to take part in the build-up to the world’s greatest sporting competition. “St Vincent and the Grenadines are playing World Cup qualifiers in January and February,” he says, “so hopefully I’ll be going back home to take part.”
In the meantime, home has come to him to some extent. “I have a brother living here. He is on trial at Sligo,” he explains. And it’s not just his relatives that have discovered this colder corner of the Atlantic: “I met a fella in Dun Laoghaire who is from home. I’ve also met a few people from Antigua, Grenada and Jamaica, and a good friend of mine who lives here is from Barbados.”
So what does the future beyond soccer hold for the 32-year-old? “I want to stay here and try to get into coaching at some stage,” says Charles. “I want to see what I can do; to see if I can make a difference. If things don’t work out with that then I’ll probably go back home.”
But in the meantime, Charles is keeping his mind very firmly on the next two fixtures, and for very good reason: “We are playing Sligo [the game versus Sligo finished 1–1] and then we’re playing Bray the following week at home [on 20 July].” Two tough matches indeed, but Charles is more than up to the task.
