Dramatic winner City fan's film about football on remote island becomes a big hit

A FILM about a Bristol City fan who decided to try to become an international football manager - by organising what was described as the ‘worst football team in the world’ - has become a huge hit, scooping praise and awards at film festivals all over the world.

- Tristan CORK [e-mail]

The film is called The Soccermen and was originally made more than 12 years ago, but has now been properly completed and released and is winning awards and selections at film festivals from Las Vegas to Slovenia.

The documentary movie tells the story of two friends - Bristol’s Paul Watson and his friend Matthew Conrad - who decided to see if they could be good enough to play international football. That led fairly quickly to them taking on the job of managing the national team of the Micronesian island nation of Pohnpei.

The issue was that Pohnpei didn’t really have a national team, or indeed any team, except some enthusiastic islanders who loved football and wanted to play. When Paul - the brother of Bristol comedian Mark Watson - and Matthew arrived, they had to find enough players, train them and set them up for their first win.

That was back in 2009 and, over the course of the next 18 months, Paul and assistant manager Matthew set up a footballing base in Pohnpei and filmed their journey - from the first training session where one player in an England shirt turned up, to getting a squad together to go to another neighbouring country and win.

The documentary they made of their story was initially put together to accompany a 2012 book, called Up Pohnpei!, but has now been completed, properly produced and released as a feature-length film in 2025.