Ukrainian refugee becomes Irish Rover
League leaders Shamrock Rovers provide a refuge from war for their new midf ielder and his family
SEVEN months ago they were living the ‘perfect life’ in beautiful Odessa: he a professional footballer, she a fashion model and they were both proud parents to baby, Alex.
Now, after a terrifying escape from Ukraine, a summer working in a fish factory in Cork, and one remarkable coincidence, Viktor Serdeniuk is finally lacing his boots up again – in the green and white of League of Ireland leaders Shamrock Rovers.
Viktor’s wife Natalia shared the young family’s story with the Irish Mail on Sunday, in the week that her husband was part of Rovers’ squad for their Europa Conference League game in Belgium.
Up until the war broke out, 26-year-old Viktor was lining out in midfield for FK Balkany Zorya in Ukraine’s third tier, while Natalia, 25, was working as a model.
The two had recently sold a sports therapy business to focus on the demands of raising little Alex, born in September 2021.
‘We had a perfect life,’ said Natalia. ‘We had everything. We didn’t even notice how happy we were.’
They had met in school, where Viktor didn’t win her over immediately ‘but was too in love and persistent,’ said Natalia. And so they got married in 2017 – ‘the way I dreamed’.
The couple had many plans for their future, including renovating a recently-purchased apartment in Odessa. They were staying with Natalia’s parents when the invasion began in February.
‘It was the worst morning of my life,’ Natalia recalled. ‘We tried to leave for western Ukraine where we have relatives. But after driving six or seven hours, the entrance to the city we had to go through was being shelled.
‘We had to turn back. All this time we cried, not knowing what was happening and why.
‘We covered all the windows of my parents’ house with wood and put sandbags around the house and lived under fire for a week.
‘We were a week in this horror, sitting in a cold basement under the house almost all the time. I cried constantly.’
The young family finally made an escape plan and headed west, staying with family and friends in Moldova, Romania, Germany and Paris – with their dog Chakki in tow. ‘We stopped to say goodbye to Viktor’s grandmother who lives near the border in Ukraine and at that moment they began to bomb the city, but we were able to leave,’ Natalia said.
‘When we drove around Europe, I didn’t understand how people could live so calmly, go to work, to a cafe, celebrate birthdays and weddings, when such a terrible war is so close.’ An American friend put her in touch with a friend of his in Ireland who was taking in refugees.
Natalia, Viktor, Alex and their dog Chakki took the ferry here and drove to their new temporary home in Cork, arriving eight days after leaving Ukraine.
‘We didn’t know where we were going and what the people looked like, the house and so on,’ Natalia explained. ‘When we arrived, we were delighted.’
She called their hosts ‘our angels, our saviours’.
Natalia’s mother, brother and sister soon followed them over to Ireland. Her brother and Viktor found work in a fish factory, after
Viktor’s attempts to join Cork City FC came to nothing.
‘At first, it was funny and we saw the good points,’ said Natalia. ‘Then Mom and my siblings returned to Ukraine and Viktor worked by himself.’
Soon after that Viktor had a car accident, writing off the only possession of value the family had to its name.
‘Viktor’s morale state was terrible,’ Natalia said. ‘He felt guilty.’
It was around this time that Natalia decided to try and take things into her own hands.
She sought out a man the couple had met back home around six years before – Giuseppe Gammalliere, a London-based football agent whose wife is a Ukrainian friend of Natalia’s family.
Giuseppe happens to be good friends with former Celtic player Paul Byrne, a respected football agent here who is in the process of launching the Second Chance Foundation, which will support returning young Irish players who don’t fulfil their football ambitions abroad.
Paul got Viktor a trial with Shamrock Rovers and put him up for two weeks while the Tallaght club assessed their new proposition, who has previously represented Ukraine at youth level alongside Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko.
‘I was a little bit sceptical about bringing someone into my home at first,’ Paul told the MoS. ‘Then I thought, I was once that person going away to England as an apprentice footballer, living with another family and they opened the doors for me.
‘So why wouldn’t I give someone a chance of making it as a professional footballer and looking after his family?’
The Dubliner said he was ‘just delighted’ when Rovers agreed to hold on to Viktor until the season’s
end in November at least and there could be more Ukrainian players to follow.
Natalia said Viktor was ‘very nervous and didn’t believe it’ at first, but now the couple are delighted he is back doing what he loves.
She added: ‘At first Ireland caused delight. Then a strong longing for Ukraine began. Depression followed and then humility.
‘And now I just love Ireland and consider it my second home.’
‘When we arrived here, we were delighted’