Ex-Man Utd star admits football career made him 'unhappy' before he became a priest

Philip Mulryne, 46, came through the famous Manchester United academy and spent six years playing for Norwich before turning his back on football to become a priest

Footballer to priest is not a well-trodden route, but then Philip Mulryne was not a typical footballer.

The former Manchester United and Norwich midfielder is now known as Friar Philip Mulryne and is an ordained priest of the Dominican Order. Mulryne spent 13 years as a professional footballer, having been spotted by a United scout playing in his native Belfast as a 14-year-old.

He had a successful trial with the Premier League giants and signed a school boy contract with the club and later turned pro in 1994. Mulryne was a part of the United side who won the FA Youth Cup in 1995, but despite showing promise he only made a handful of first-team appearances. His Premier League debut came on the final day of the 1997/98 season against Barnsley.

That proved to be his only Premier League appearance for United as he moved onto Norwich for £500,000. He spent six years at Carrow Road, making 172 appearances and scoring 20 goals. Mulryne was part of the side which won promotion to the Premier League in 2004 but left after they were relegated the following season.

His career drifted after that, with stints at Cardiff and Leyton Orient and trials with Ipswich, Bournemouth, Brighton, Legia Warsaw and Barnsley seeing him fall out of love with the game. After playing for non-league side King’s Lynn, Mulryne returned to Belfast in 2009 for a spell away from the game.

He was 29 years old and, although he had originally planned to play until he was 35, he reconnected with his faith and “felt the Lord calling me to become a priest”. Speaking to The Irish Dominicans Youtube Channel, he explained: “I found my vocation quite late in life, when I was 29.

"I returned to the practice of my faith, through the example of my sister, started to read about the faith and take it very personally for the first time – and that led me on a discovery of the faith for the first time in a very deep way and to make the decision to leave my football career, return to Belfast and pursue a vocation.”

Mulryne worked hard to follow his religious calling, studying philosophy at Queen's University Belfast and theology in Rome. He was ordained as a priest in July 2017. Asked about his journey from football to becoming a priest in 2019, the 46-year-old told the Norwich club website : “It’s hard to pin down a particular moment. I would say it started in my last year at Norwich, not explicitly and I wasn’t thinking about it at that time but I started to get dissatisfied with the whole lifestyle.

“We have a wonderful life as a footballer and I was very privileged, but I found with all the surrounding stuff that eventually there was a kind of emptiness with it. I was quite shocked: why am I not happy when I have everything that young men want? It started me on a journey towards exploring my faith again, the faith that I had as a young man. I took a decision to come home for a year and it was really during that year that everything turned upside down.

“I volunteered at a homeless shelter for a while. I started going back to mass and I started praying again on a regular basis. I just found a real sense of fulfilment with it. Football was huge highs and lows and here was something that was giving me a steady sense of contentment.

“My vocation to priesthood and religious life came later in the course of that year – I felt this strong desire for this way of life and I stayed with it for a few months and then got the courage up to explore it and I took the decision and it’s now eight years later.”

Mulryne, who assigned to St Mary's Priory in Cork, also believes the discipline he learnt from football has helped him in his religious life. He said: “One of the greatest discoveries for me over the years is the similarities with both of them that are not obvious on the surface and one of those is working together as a team, living with brothers, pursuing a similar goal.”

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