DESTINY’S CHILD: Sailen Tudu (Below)Sailen’s parents and a sister trace his success story in pictures at their city residence. Picture by Aranya Sen

A Bankura boy who grew up playing football in Calcutta’s police housing estate has become the country’s most promising rugby full-back and a protégé of British star Phil Vickery barely four years after seeing a scrum for the first time.

Sailen Tudu, pursuing a diploma in sport from Hartpury College near Gloucester on a full scholarship, had quit studies in 2004 to be a sportsperson. But he couldn’t have imagined then that rugby would be his calling.

“He loved sport, and I always encouraged him to do what he liked. But rugby? He didn’t even know that such a game existed,” said his father Sudhir Chandra Tudu, a retired assistant sub-inspector.

Hailing from Bhengam village, in Bankura, 20-year-old Sailen’s dream of becoming a top footballer was shattered when a back injury kept him out of the game for two years.

Luck smiled on Sailen when Paul Walsh, a former diplomat with the British deputy high commission in Calcutta, spotted him intently watching a rugby practice session at the race course in 2005.

“I was invited to join the game, and I haven’t looked back since,” said the short but well-built youth, currently in Mumbai for a rugby championship.

Walsh not only encouraged Sailen to keep playing the game but also coach streetchildren.

Father Sudhir said Walsh’s constant encouragement convinced him that his son had a future in rugby.

“One day Mr Walsh came to our house and sought my permission to send Sailen to Pakistan for a tournament. We were all so happy,” the former cop said.

In 2005, Sailen made it to the national under-19 team for a south Asian meet in Pakistan.

“He was one of the best players there and played a key role in defeating Pakistan,” recalled police officer Verghese Kunjachan, the coach of the Calcutta police rugby team.

Walsh arranged for Sailen to visit England for the first time in 2007 as the coach of a team from the Bhubaneswar-based Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences.

“Our team won the tournament,” smiled Sailen.

The defining moment in Sailen’s career came the very next year after Walsh met Chris Yorke, whose father Richard partners World Cup-winning Vickery in Raging Bull, the sport and leisurewear company that sponsors Hartpury College.

“I was wondering how to provide Tudu with a scholarship at Hartpury because it was very expensive to study there. I requested Charles, and within two to three weeks everything was settled,” said Walsh.

Raging Bull raised £1,200 last year for Sailen’s daily expenses.

“I am grateful for the scholarship, and now I want to go to university and get a coaching degree.”

He also intends taking rugby to children in his village, where he spent the first five years of his life.

Sailen is planning to bring a group of rugby players from England next Easter and organise workshops for children in the tribal belt.

“I have come a long way from Bankura but I will always remember where I started out,” said Sailen, who used to share a small flat in the police housing estate at Bhavani Bhavan with his parents and sisters Sarala and Kanika.