Skip to main content

Charlie Pomroy: The British coach who left England for Cambodia, and is now dreaming of Nauru success

By

The English coach who is leading the World's smallest nation island to their footballing debut


Over my few years interviewing a range of people involved in football, there aren’t many who speak more passionately about the sport than Charlie Pomroy.

After chatting for only 40 minutes on Zoom, I felt inspired to a new level in a sport I have played for half of my life, albeit a record of two goals in seven years probably shows my quality.

Luckily for Charlie, he doesn’t have to coach a player that bad, but after moving to Cambodia 11 years ago, the Englishman does face different challenges.

When the Stevenage-raised coach arrived in Asia, the national team was still on FIFA’s blacklist due to an investigation into match-fixing.

Although over a decade on, Cambodian football looks completely different. In 2018, the national team even hired the former AC Milanplayer Keisuke Honda as their head coach.

The Japanese international left his role last year, but during his stint as boss Cambodia recorded their best-ever record in an AFF Championship, winning two games, but at club level teams are still looking out for support.

He said: “The Federation has done an amazing job in cleaning the game up and developing the sport. It has come on leaps and bounds, with it now becoming part of the mainstream culture.

“However, there is not enough money in the game and this will be the biggest issue with the player development.

“Players can’t have this as a career to retire on and if they aren’t treated like professional footballs, then how can we expect them to act like one and behave like one.

“On the one hand I am on the player’s side in that sense but also I believe that if someone was giving me the chance to be a professional football, I would have done it for free, in fact, I would have probably paid them.”

Pomroy has only recently found out how devastatingly little money there is in Cambodian professional football after he transformed his not-for-profit academy into a pro team, called Angkor City FC. In his role, he leads the off-the-field decisions, as the owner, and also makes on-the-field choices as a coach.

He initially set up his academy to help underprivileged children have a chance to experience football, the way he did and in what is a common theme in his journey, his football-mad passion was infectious.

He said: “There was no gradual step to get to where I am now, it is just bumps along the way. For the most part, when I arrived in Cambodia it was about using football for good.

“I was in the sunshine every day, working with underprivileged kids and that sort of thing puts a smile on my face and I love it.”

The Next Step academy, set up in 2013, had multiple successes when it came to producing talent for the senior game, with over 40 players using this pathway to venture into professional football.

It was only when the Cambodian footballing landscape had a complete reshuffle, that meant a vacant space was open for the academy itself to get promoted to senior football.

 Pomroy said: “They asked us because we were winning cups at the provincial level.

“We underestimated how big a challenge it was going to be, and I knew we weren’t ready financially or foundational, but I thought it would be pretty easy to attract money.

“It just hasn’t been and we have paid the price really. We spent last season with young season who weren’t ready to play, which has carried over to this year.

“We have two 18-year-old centre-backs who are fantastic but they aren’t ready. They are being traipsed out every week because they are the only two centre-backs we’ve got,

“Everyone is writing them off and acting like it is the end of their careers, but it would be impossible for anyone to do well in the situation they are in.”

It was a risk, but it definitely wasn’t the first life-changing risk he had ever made. In 2007, departing Stevenage F.C. and then suffering a double ankle break, Pomroy despised the game he had dedicated his life to.

Some time away was needed. He tried stand-up comedy, worked in a couple bars, and travelled; it was a period of a few years where he felt free from the sport.

Come 2011 and this was when the Englishman booked a one-way ticket to India, with only £500 in his wallet

He said: “My dad was a traveller and he said I needed to go to India, and so that was the first place I wanted to go.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do there, but it was brave and it really paid dividends. It was the best decision in my life.”

It was his journey through India and other countries that led him to Cambodia, where his experience as a coach and owner isn’t similar to many.

Whilst England’s head coach Gareth Southgate was preparing, and eventually losing a World Cup semi-final to Croatia in 2018, Pomroy and his academy were setting a world record.

It was when 2,537 people played in the most participated football match, and it lasted five days straight, but instead of spending £20,000 for the Guinness World Records to adjudicate they live-streamed it and spent the funds promoting the challenge, in an unofficial attempt.

The occassion brought all groups of people together and left Pomroy with a beautiful memory, even if they didn’t have the GWR plaque.

He said: “I remember going back to the academy, at 4:30am, where the world record was taking place and it was just a family of four playing a two-on-two match.

“It cheered me up to no end, after I was at the bottom of the bottle with England losing and seeing the family keep it going was absolutely amazing.

“We decided to end it because we knew we beat it, we split the day into 45-minute time slots, so we kept having a quick turnaround.

“Between 1-7am, it was just our academy playing, they skipped school and slept at the facilities just to keep the football match going.”

These heart-warming events, along with starting a family, have meant that he has now called Cambodia home for 11 years, but his time in Asia will now be split with Nauru, the world’s smallest island nation and a place that inhabits 76,809 people less than his hometown Stevenage.

Nauru and the Marshall Island are the only two countries tonever have played an international football match but with Pomroy’s appointment as a head coach that will soon change.

He said: “I was going to run the federation for them and navigate all the development side of things, but they pretty much surprised me the day they announced it as the coach.

“They said I would be perfect for it and they don’t have to worry about me ruining the project, so it made sense and for me, it was too good of an opportunity to turn down.”

The Angkor City coach has yet to visit Nauru, and with a quick Google search, I didn’t manage to find any flights going… surprisingly.

But despite not seeing the country first-hand, he realised although not talented in soccer, they have managed to scalp a few teams in Aussie rules.

He said: “Obviously, it isn’t a popular sport, however, Aussie Rules is and they have had international matches where they have beaten Australia, the USA and England.

“That would indicate that there are physically strong players on the island, and given the political climate there you would imagine they are hard and tough.

“So, from that acorn of being very difficult to beat and hard then we have a tree to grow and we can worry about left-backs playing as inverted midfielders and things like that later on but being hard to beat would step one.

“I suppose it is about getting them to fall in love with the sport, and I think that is my biggest skill as a coach and as a person.

“I can get people to gravitate to the sport and see for more than just the game, for me, it is the only thing that makes me cry but also deliriously happy.”

On his journey in Nauru, he will be joined by an ex-Premier League forward, who will help attract a larger-scale audience to the project.

But if anyone can bring out the excitement towards football in a country where there isn’t a football pitch in sight, it’s Charlie Pomroy.

His irresistible love for the sport has been felt in Asia, and it will be felt in the depths of Oceania, I even felt it over a 40-minute Zoom call.

 If you enjoyed this post, check out more of my articles below:

 

Comments

Post a Comment