Dunoon What We're Doing!

"David Batty passes to Beckham. Beckham now plays a wonderful cross field ball to Scholes. Scholes with a wonderful through ball to the feet of Sidle. Sidle round Blanc and now only Barthez to beat, he must score....he does! SIDLE WINS THE WORLD CUP FOR ENGLAND!"

Swamp monster Josh

  I must have played this scene, or one like it (David Batty probably wasn't playing), a million times or more during my childhood. That dream changed over the years as the obvious realisation that Blanc would have retired by the time I played in the World Cup sunk in. Okay so that's not the actual reason the dream changed. First it changed to scoring the winning goal in an MJSL Cup final and more recently my dream is to manage the winning side in the same Sunday League trophy. Time, fitness and ability take their toll I guess.

A few months ago, just as my dream of playing in a World Cup had really died a death, I'm even too old to go and live in Tahiti (for example) gain citizenship and play for them these days, my good friend Josh Taylor messaged me on Facebook and asked if I fancied going to Scotland to take part in the Swamp Soccer World Cup. Well there might not be a Cristano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi playing but I wasn't going to say no.

Finally, after a bloody long wait, myself, Josh, Simon Lazarus, Ben Taylor (Josh's brother), Gary Backman, Simon Church and James Laskier made the journey up to Dunoon, west of Glasgow, to take part.  The premise is simple, 6-a-side football played in a Swamp. Pitches of mud, churned up by JCB's and pumped with water the whole day.

The excitement and nerves were palpable as, after a 5 hour drive, 1 hour stop at a service station, half an hour to stop to get a ball because we were turning up to a football tournament without a football, a 20 minute ferry ride and 10 minutes stuck behind literally the slowest driver ever, we arrived at the campsite. Half of us arrived 2 minutes late for registration and we were all only half an hour away from kick off in match one. Josh handed out the shirts and Ben the shorts, much humour was taken from me being far too fat for the first pair handed to me- thanks Ben.

As we waited for our match the ref told us the rules. 'Jostling', as he put it, was allowed. In Scotland they don't usually speak a different language but the word jostling definitely has a different meaning south of the border. If the Swamp doesn't get you then the opposition will and that first half of the first game was as difficult as anything I've done before. We were beat but had it not been for several Backman wondersaves it would have been more.

Defeated but not downhearted we took stock and regrouped. Taking stock we realised that every other team had at least 4 subs to our one and had bigger players than we did. Regrouping we decided to laugh at our exploits and wonder in amazement at some of our 'keepers' saves. Whilst stopping to have our picture taken we were 'photobombed' by a local lad. Russell was desperate to play and clearly drunk but we needed players; "find a white t-shirt and you're in" Josh told our new found friend.

Whilst waiting, and warming up, for match two Russell appeared with a white t-shirt and shorts. Of course I instantly managed to offend him by calling him 'our Henrik Larsson'. For the Manchester United fans amongst us that's a compliment, Russell was a Celtic fan, I decided against mentioning his hair was reminiscent of a young Kenny Dalglish.

7 friends and 1 random drunk hero

In match two Russell really was our hero, his mix of what seemed to be actual footballing ability and drunken splendour meant he through himself into every challenge and played as if this was a normal 6-a-side pitch. At half time in match two we were 3-1 down and well in the game and this was our downfall. We pushed forward believing, far too much, in our chances at victory and were beaten on the break. The match finished 6-2 and Russell disappeared, presumably to get another beer.

With the rain, the two losses and an hour and a half wait till the next match, morale dropped slightly as we huddled between two cars to stay as warm as in possible whilst drenched in mud. Thoughts turned to the last game and putting in our all to one last effort and mentions of diving saves, hilarious misses and, of course, our good friend Russell and his drunken (and possibly drug fuelled) antics meant that spirits were not down for long. We taped up our boots, devoured some venison burgers and got ready for game three.

What happened in game three shall remain in game three. With the ground even more of a marsh land and the seven novices of Buried F.C facing a 12 man squad that had five years experience behind it we crumbled to a big defeat. When the whistle went to signify the end of our 'competitive' time in the tournament the final score didn't matter. Shattered but happy half of the team began a pile on, I looked at Josh and we both started running- if you can't execute the Jurgen Klinsman dive at this point in life you may as well give up now.

We were knackered, we were beaten but we enjoyed ourselves as much as we ever had and we knew we'd definitely be back next year.

Of course there was no winning goal for Sidle, or Backman, Church, Laskier, Lazarus or Taylor for that matter. There was no Ronaldo or Barthez.

And Messi?

Just a little!