United’s new signing and city native Folan is eager to make up for lost time

“When I came home to Ireland and to Limerick, I was getting paid a fraction of what I was getting in England, but it was probably the happiest I had been as I was playing every week.

“I had a sense in the team, a belonging, because I was playing, whereas over there when you are playing reserve team football, you might only have a game every couple of weeks and you know yourself you are a million miles away from the first team, so you are kind of just punching the clock and picking up the cheque,” he says.

His performances across two seasons for Limerick earned him a move to Sligo Rovers at the start of 2015, and while the north west club struggled, Folan was playing well, and secured a move to title-chasing Cork City. And then fate struck again.

“I didn’t really kick a ball when I was down there which was probably again down to my own doing. I had a lot going on off the field, with my family – my dad was diagnosed with cancer back in March and he passed away on September 1,” he says – he shares the same first name with his father, a man who was steeped in local football.

“I was down there for about six weeks and I was getting fit, I got onto the pitch two or three times, I was probably pushing for a start but my father passed away and I came home and that was very hard to deal with.

“I went back down after the funeral but mentally and physically I just wasn’t there – probably for the most of last season, mentally and physically I don’t think I was at it, but I am here at home now to rectify that and get back to where I was,” he says.

He has enjoyed pre-season at United – “it was tough but it was fair, everything was done properly and efficiently and I like Tommy and Leo’s ethos of trying to play and be the best you can be,” he says of the United manager and assistant manager, Messrs Dunne and Tierney.

He knows he has been handed not only a second, but a third, chance at building a career. At 23, he is still young enough to make the big breakthrough, and he still has his sights set on making it in England, but he intends on enjoying his time at his home-time club first.

“I always wanted to play for my home town team, whether it was at the start of my career or end of my career, I always wanted to play for them and I think now is the right environment to be at home and to be playing.

“I don’t see playing for my home team as extra pressure. I’m back home in my comfort zone, I have my friends and family around me so I have that support network.

“I have been away for eight years, there were times I probably made bad decisions but it was out of pure boredom, but as you get older and get more experience, you learn more what you can and can do and what your body can and can’t do – you don’t need to be going out gallivanting with friends, when you are around family and friends, you can just call around to their house or they can call around to you. It’s a maturity thing, and I think I have grown up,” he says.

He name checks players like Shane Long, Wes Hoolahan, David Forde, James McClean, and Seamus Coleman, senior internationals who came up through the League of Ireland ranks, and he believes he can join that list one day, but if he doesn’t, it won’t be the end of the world.

“It is definitely a dream of mine to go back across, but if it never happens and I play league of Ireland for the rest of my career, so be it. I’m playing and I’m happy, and I think happiness is the key.

“You see a lot of players who are not happy – when you are happy, you play your best football, that’s what I believe so it is just about finding what makes you tick, sticking with it and working hard and see where it takes you.”

He is happy now, and is looking forward to the season ahead. A happy Stephen Folan will mean United will have a top-class player hungry to prove himself again, and that can only be good news for both club and man.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.