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.

Monday, 28 September 2009

Manila

The flight to the Philippines was shite. Charles somehow managed to get selected from the 800 people on the flight to get upgraded. From the moment we touched down in Manila it became apparent that Swine Flu was a major concern. In fear of the disease Manila airport officials herded passengers into a confined space and kept us waiting, immersed in each other's breath, for as long as they could. It was muggy, really really muggy and the rain was hammering down on the taxi roof. 2 hours of traffic later and we settled into the hotel. That night Paul, Charles and I had a few light ales, played a couple of friendly hands of wist and went to bed. Anything else you heard is vicious and unsubstantiated slander.

There was some amusement surrounding the Filipino interpretation of an Irish breakfast. I know we drew a comparison to Canadian Doubles and a Mexican Shower but i can't remember the specifics. Paul and I spent the rest of the day in a cafe nursing a single cup of coffee since all my cards had been blocked. I didn't even have enough to pay the bill and offered to do the washing up. It's amazing what happens when seemingly respectable tourists can't pay for 2 coffees. The staff just pissed themselves. I'll remember that.

Off to the airport and off to Guam. That was a shit house of a flight. The traffic back to the airport was even worse than before. The cab driver subjected us to Beyoncé's new album. We discovered that her songs were really wordy, clunky melody-less dirges.
At the airport Paul reacted extremely to a cup of coffee and was bouncing off the walls like a kinder surprise toy and got stuck in a vicious vortex of saying the word "Guam" which periodically sucked in everyone in his immediate vicinity. In a state of fitful panic we ate 12 cheese rolls and discussed which country name sounded most like a fruit whilst Charles ate a hamburger. On the plus side this was the first time that when we said "Pohnpei" to an airline official they didn't ask us to repeat ourselves.

We arrived in Guam and I promptly destroyed both Paul and Charles in the race through immigration. As we waited with surreal excitement for the departure of our plane to Pohnpei we contemplated the madness of our journey so far and met our first Pohnpeins who Charles "happened" to know. We boarded our final plane before Kolonia, a cauldron of emotion and slightly nauseous. There was one more stop- Chuuk. Paul and I opted to disembark and nose about. An attempt to get a local to take a picture of us resulted in the camera being held upside down and back to front. Classic. Paul had a contre-temp with a rather entitled airport nazi and almost got barred from the plane. Next stop: Pohnpei.
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Wednesday, 16 September 2009

DAY ONE (First Leg)


Roughly two years prior to this day, Paul was working peacefully in my kitchen. I had sat down next to him with the soul purpose of distracting him from his adorable little Italian football articles. His resolve was strong but eventually and inevitably we got onto the topic of football in Micronesia. Now we were in the airport with a Ugandan man called Charles Musana (henceforth known as “The Moose”) with a single goal in sight: a merciless yet bloodless football coup in a Pacific archipelago.

The trip opened with a cushy 8 hour Emirates jaunt to Dubai. The cabin staff scarcely had time to bombard us with an avalanche of snacks when we discovered that we could play battleships against each other. After my comprehensive public execution of the self-proclaimed “inventor” of Battleships we embarked on a 7 hour Pong marathon. Sadly, the results of the results of this particular competition were not recorded.

Dubai airport is palatial and every single one of those 6 rapturous hours was a pleasure. Critically, we got to know The Moose a little better. On camera he was cautious and cagey. Unwilling to incriminate himself in any way, he started wielding the word "allegedly" like a pair of conversational nunchucks. He was unwilling blame anyone or anything for football's dissolution since he left Pohnpei but his determination for us to succeed was palpable.
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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