After giving the referee and his assistants all our names we received flowers and a welcome mat before trooping onto the astro-turf pitch and lining up for the National Anthem of Iran. There followed an operatic rendition of half the Koran. During this they failed to get a radio mike with a big enough range until the Friar was actually singing his final top "A" which was then amplified and echoed round the surrounding snow-capped mountains to the whole of Tehran. The Mullahs would be pleased.

They suggested that as we looked so old and decrepit we should play 3 "halves" of 30 mins each. This, it turned out, meant they could field what seemed to be 3 different teams of professional footballers. The third and last side appeared to be the International team that beat the USA in Paris 1998! With 11 jet lagged, ageing but keen amateurs and one substitute who just about knew the rules the final scoreline was pretty good. It was a pleasure to watch the pinpoint passes from one side to the other.

A monumental left-footer from Parry was parried by the goalie at full stretch and just tipped round the post at the very top left corner. It was Karl however, who, by making inroads through the defence, managed several shots on goal and thus earned the coveted "Man of the Match" tee shirt. This was despite a keen effort from Will Ollard who thoroughly amused the audience with his largely unsuccessful attempts at keeping his lucky trousers up. It should also be pointed out that after a very soft 1st goal he did go on to make a number of superb saves. It was he who was responsible in keeping the scoreline down to a relatively dignified 0-9.

The match was filmed for 2 Iranian TV channels (to begin with anyway) and various members of Racing Club were interviewed. All were asked which Champions League team they used to play for! There was a lot of puzzlement over the Syrian National strip that we wore. Most of us told the interviewer that we had been given them as a token of respect by the Syrian squad whom we had played so magnificently against on a previous trip. I don't think they entirely believed the last bit!

Despite the somewhat lopsided scoreline the whole team thoroughly enjoyed the match and were honoured to be pitched against such a good team. It was a bit of a shame that we were not pitched against a team of more similar standing. Nevertheless we are most grateful for all the hard work that had clearly gone into making us welcome and organising this spectacular game.