The story so far...

In December 2007, football journalist Paul Watson and filmmaker Matthew Conrad started to research the most remote footballing nations hoping to make a documentary on a land free from the increasingly materialistic world of the Premier League, a land where the love of the game still ruled.
Looking past the FIFA rankings to the list of non-federated teams, they found Pohnpei - the only side never to have won an international match.
Upon approaching the Pohnpei Soccer Association, Paul and Matt discovered that the former figurehead Charles Musana had just moved to London.
Mr Musana informed them that there was no coach in place and that the Pohnpei team had become more or less inactive.
Paul and Matt decided to give up everything to travel the length of the globe and take on the challenge.
20 months later, the football-crazed duo arrived on Pohnpei to take over the reigns. They had become the Soccermen.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Deep-rooted form issues resurface to waylay NF Board bid

From the very beginning of this project, it has been clear that at some point Pohnpei needs to join the Nouvelle-Federation (N-F) Board.

In the early stages of researching non-FIFA football we discovered this bizarre, yet magnificent Belgian organisation, which is run by Luc Misson (the man responsible for the Bosman Ruling) and helps teams that FIFA won't recognise.

Of the 20 or so teams under this umbrella, some are politically disputed territories, like Tibet, some are regions that have a strong sense of identity, such as Sardinia, some are states constrained by larger federations, like Pohnpei's Micronesian cousins Yap, and some are crazy anomalies created by enterprising nutjobs (Sealand).

Magically, these entities come together to compete in an alternative World Cup, known as the VIVA World Cup - a parallel universe where Lapland can play West Papua and Zanzibar can take on Wallonia.

The idea of signing Pohnpei up to the NF Board as a stepping stone to FIFA had been firmly embedded in our brains from the off and I had hardly returned home before I made email contact with everyone in the organisation, hoping to start the ball rolling.

However, what I didn't take into account was that there would be forms. In fact, an unwelcome orgy of paperwork was lying in wait.

Now, it's not so much that I don't like forms, after all nobody likes forms. It's more that I have some kind of form-related disorder. Whenever I'm faced with forms, I will inevitably go through the following stages:

1. Assured anticipation - I know I'm going to nail this and I want to enjoy every moment, so I'll wait to the best possible time to do them.
2. Crippling perfectionism - Given my initial confidence, before I write any word I need to know it is exactly right. To be safe I write nothing at all but gaze at the white space with a dopey Chris Martin-esque expression. Lots of other menial tasks become very urgent and can be got out of the way while I think.
3. Form Tourette's - The forms have been with me for far too long. They have in some way become more powerful than me. I'm convinced I can hear them chatting to each other in hushed whispers when my back is turned. Finally I unleash all my pent up angst on the stack of paper. Words spew fourth from every orifice in no particular order. Boxes are filled and overfilled. The form is to all intents and purposes ruined.

And that's why it took me six days to write a word on the forms that I believe represent the biggest opportunity in the history of Pohnpei football.

This evening Stage 3 kicked in. At the start of next week an earnest Belgian will be engulfed in a deluge of almost entirely superfluous correspondence. I just hope he still lets us in.
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January 2008-May 2009

Once the vague idea had been formulated, it very rapidly became a definite plan. The only problem was that I had a job, a flat and an overdraft. Added to that I was in, at best, respectable physical condition and had no real idea how to coach a football team. In short, there was a lot of work to do before I could set off for Pohnpei.
So, I joined East Fulham, a decent amateur football club with regular training and an excellent coach. I doubled my gym visits and, most painfully, I started to watch what I ate and drank. Trips to the supermarket were miserable and agonisingly long, as for the first time in my life I read all the nutritional information labels.
Fairly unsurprisingly, the lifestyle of a serious athlete is quite different to that of a journalist. Working 15-hour shifts at home perched in front of my computer in a £700-per-month cell on Acton High Street, I struggled with the intensity of my new regime. I would run to the gym during shifts, do a session, run back and pray nobody had noticed my absence. It was a risky strategy and I'm sure the stress cost me years of my life.
I pretty much stopped drinking. I lost track of friends. I slept poorly and had regular nightmares that everything would fall through - what if someone else stole the idea and got there first? If I couldn't contact Charles Musana for a day I'd panic. Phone calls to Matt, who was in LA, had to be conducted at 8am while I was half-asleep and typing news stories for Football Italia with one hand. I turned up to football (four times a week) still exhausted from a 15k run the night before or a hurried afternoon assault on my biceps.
I was doing all this because of my love for football a tiny island I'd never been to, a speck in the Pacific Ocean, Pohnpei.
Posted by Paul Watson