Ugochukwu Chiedozie Chinye Monye was born in Islington on April 13th 1983 and educated at Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire. An outstanding athlete as a schoolboy, he ran the 100 metres in the English Schools Athletics Championships in 2001 and made his first appearance in the backs for the Harlequins 1st XV against Glasgow Warriors on August 9th 2002.
He played more than 240 games for Harlequins until his retirement in 2015. An outstanding sevens player who represented the England RFU Sevens team from 2003, he won his first cap on the left wing for the full England XV against the Pacific Islanders in November 2008 and played in 14 internationals between 2008 and 2012, scoring tries against Scotland in 2009 and Fiji in 2012.
He was selected for the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 2009 and played in six matches including two of the three tests, scoring a memorable long-range 70-yard interception try in the third test. His tally of 5 tries made him the leading try scorer for the Lions on the tour. He also represented the Barbarians on tour against a Scotland XV and Georgia in 2006 and an England XV in 2015 just prior to his retirement from the game.
Since his retirement, he has become a respected media pundit for BT Sport and is a regular columnist for The Guardian. A host of the BBC's Rugby Union weekly podcast, he has been chair of the Rugby Football Union's independent advisory group on diversity since April 2021.
His media versatility is demonstrated by his participation in Series 19 of Strictly Come Dancing in 2021 and he was also chosen as a captain of one of the BBC's Question of Sport teams in September 2021.
