Dale Tempest tells Sky Sports the story of how he became a Hong Kong international.
Before reinventing himself as a betting expert for Sky Bet, Dale Tempest was a lower league footballer with a twist. At 22 he left Huddersfield to play for Lokeren in Belgium and after a brief spell at Colchester he walked away from English football for good to pursue a new life in Hong Kong... and ended up playing in World Cup qualifiers for them! Adam Bate found out more...
How did the move to Belgium come about?
I was at Huddersfield. We'd had a decent enough season and finished mid-table or near enough. Mark Lillis, who was my strike partner, went off to Manchester City for £100,000. The two years that I'd been there I'd scored 17 goals in the first season and 16 in the second. They offered me a new contract and it was only £10 extra for a further two years.
Different times!
Tell me about it! So I decided that I'd go as a free and see if I could pick up another club. An agent got in touch with me and I ended up in Belgium with Sporting Lokeren.
It was a big move for a 22-year-old though?
Yeah, I think the experience at Huddersfield had just disillusioned me. I really thought that I was going to get a decent contract for the first time in my life having come through the system. And obviously instead I was offered an absolutely ridiculous contract. I mentally became a mercenary overnight.
What were your first impressions?
It was fairly different. Actually, I have to say that my time in Belgium was the only time I felt I improved as a player. We played once a week and everything was about technique. When you signed they gave you your own ball which you had to put your name on and bring to training every day. That was quite unusual.
But the dressing room with the players, they were like any other players. We had a good combination of a few foreign players and some younger lads. We were actually favourites to go down and we were quite a small club but we managed to qualify for the UEFA Cup that year so it was a massive season for us.
Our coach was a guy called Aime Anthuenis. He went on to manage Anderlecht a year later and then be the coach of the Belgium national team. And it was a bit bizarre. I used to play up front at home and then away I'd play centre-half. It was very technical and tactical games that we'd play there.
To give you an example, the first three games I played, we played away in the League Cup and won 3-1 and I scored; then we drew the first home game against Racing Jet and I scored; and then we went to Antwerp on the Tuesday night and we won 1-0 and I scored. So we'd played three games and I'd scored in all three.
Then we went to Mechelen, who won a UEFA Cup around that time and were a really top side, and it was live on TV on the Saturday. I was getting myself psyched up for it and he dropped me. I remember the coach coming in and telling us that we don't play with any forwards today. And we went there for a 0-0 draw and got it. Everyone was high-fiving and thought it was fantastic. It left me totally bemused. But it was a great education in terms of how to think about football.
You were back in England a year later - How come?
I was enjoying it and it was all good and then Anthuenis left for Anderlecht. Wim Jansen took over, the Dutch coach who later went to Celtic. I remember I came back for pre-season and being the typical British player I'd just had the summer off. I'd put a bit of weight on. I was
