'Up Pohnpei' - the inspiring tale of football's ultimate underdogs - is set to be adapted into a documentary film.
'Up Pohnpei' - the inspiring tale of football's ultimate underdogs - is set to be adapted into a documentary film, as Jon Holmes discovered.
The tagline to the book
'Up Pohnpei' reads:
'A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory'.
This is not an account of one man's aim to drag Accrington Stanley up through the divisions to eventual Champions League glory on Football Manager.
Nor is it a tale of your rag-tag five-a-side team's attempt to win the cup by replicating tiki-taka on your local 3G pitch.
Nevertheless, it's a story that will resonate with every reader who's ever kicked a ball, or dreamed of glory for the team they support.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007, was one day when dreams such as those were shattered. As England fans trudged down Wembley Way after a 3-2 defeat by Croatia, the feeling of disappointment was palpable across the country - and the disconnect from the modern game that many observers feel was wrenched a little further.
For Paul Watson and Matt Conrad - two football-mad flatmates living in London - enough was enough. With England seemingly a lost cause, they pondered a missionary venture to a far-flung corner of the globe where the game would still have a raw beauty, unsullied by complacency and commercialism. Where in the world could they go?
After a trawl through the atlas and Wikipedia, they happened upon the Federated States of Micronesia - a sovereign nation made up of islands in the western Pacific Ocean. After noting that the football team of one of those islands - Pohnpei - had never registered a victory, their fate was sealed. Like its neighbours, Pohnpei was not even listed on the FIFA World Rankings. However, it appeared the island did have a soccer association (even though its website hadn't been updated in about five years) - and then an email came back, setting forth a remarkable chain of events over the next three years.
'Up Pohnpei' is part football journey, part literary travelogue and wholly uplifting. In many ways, the book serves as a powerful counterpoint to the distractions and obsessions that seem to characterise our own Premier League, and our problems at international level. If you've ever felt that maybe we've strayed too far from the path of what's really important about sport, reading about the exploits of Watson and Conrad will restore your faith in football. Here's seven reasons why the book casts out the modern game's deadly sins:
* England fans are being asked to fork out for a new home kit after their heroes played just eight games at Wembley in the current strip. Pohnpei's players had no kit or boots, let alone a sponsor - clubs like Yeovil and Norwich came up trumps with donations.
* Carlos Tevez's blatant disrespect for Roberto Mancini, the fans and his Manchester City employers was one of this season's low points. Watson and Conrad couldn't risk angering those in power in Pohnpei; offending anyone could have meant disaster for their plans.
* Armchair fans, lazy journalists, arrogant players and smug owners - sometimes we need to appreciate more what hard work can bring. Encouraging young men to dedicate themselves to football in a land where 91% of the population is overweight was no easy task for Pohnpei's new coaches.
* Particularly this season, football in England has been beset by tribal warfare, even though it is now conducted more by keyboard warriors than in any aggravated
