An intrepid bunch of islanders will attempt to scale footballing heights not before matched by a Manx side at the weekend.
Gary Christian leads an Isle of Man ‘select’ in an unique fixture at the highest football pitch in Europe, some 2,000 metres above sea level.
Christian and his merry men will take on the Swiss mountain village national team at the Ottmar Hitzfeld GsponArena as they aim to secure a place at next year’s 12-team Mountain Village European Football Championship in Morzine-Avoriaz, France.
Gary explains how the unlikely match in Switzerland came about: ‘Through a bizarre combination of luck, randomness and sheer lunacy we have somehow ended up being selected to represent England in this match.
‘Providing we don’t disgrace ourselves too badly then hopefully we will be able to take part in the Euros next year.
So how did Christian and manager/corner flag carrier Daniel Leadley select a crack squad for a match at such altitude?
Gary explained: ‘The selection process was pretty rigorous. You had to be my mate, willing to contribute towards the costs and be able to kick a ball.
‘Seriously though, most of the guys have played for Manx clubs. We have people who played for Peel, Marown, St John’s, Foxdale, Braddan and Kirk Michael.
‘We’ve all been mates for up to 30 years and have over the past five years or so made an annual event of travelling over to England to play a football match. We’ve played at Sunderland, Preston North End, Wolves and Tranmere.’
‘We haven’t trained on Snaefell yet but that might have been a good idea! Apparently it’ll be 20 per cent harder to breath at that altitude.’
If you would like to watch the squad of Christopher Thomas, Neil Cullington, Matthew Bell, Andy Garrett, Phil Jones, Adam Hayes, Christian, Kenny Diack, Alan Adelsalu and Richard Plumley’s efforts on Saturday, the game is being streamed live on www. bergdorfem.com, with the game kicking off at 3pm GMT.
Former Belgium and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Jean-Marie Pfaff and Olympic ice hockey player Florence Schelling are set to be among what is expected to be a large crowd for the fixture.
The squad would like to thank sponsor Old Mutual and also the V2 Gym in St John’s who has helped with training in the last three months.
Christian concluded: ‘Fingers crossed we don’t disgrace ourselves and/or cause an international incident.’