My Brunei Experience

After a successful trial with DPMM of Brunei in July, I was offered a deal to go and play for them in the Singapore League.  Yet again I was on the move with my wife and two kids, Sadie who is three and Rocky who is four.

As it turns out Brunei is a very peaceful country and devoted to its Muslim religion.  However, the football is totally different from anywhere I‘ve played in Europe. The team belongs to the Crown Prince whose father, the Sultan of Brunei, owns the country. The Prince looks upon DPMM as the country's national team and he makes every decision regarding the club from the team selection to what players are signed. As a rule, in the Singapore League each club is only allowed a maximum of four foreign players or 'imports' as they are referred to in Asia.

It was the first time in my career that I ever played for a manager that had absolutely no say or decision regarding what players came to the club.  It came to light in my early days with the club that the coach was not happy about players that were signed to contracts that did not come from his agency.  As it happens, I was one of those players, so he made my life difficult from the start!

On my first day of training I walked into the top class training facilities expecting to be greeted by the Croatian manager but instead, he just walked straight past me. I decided to introduce myself, and as I did he responded "Are you fit? You need level 13 in the bleep test to play in the Singapore League" followed by "What position do you play?" At this point I thought to myself here we go again! 

As the weeks went by it took time to adjust to training in the intense heat. Six mornings a week the squad would report for a 15 km run.  After this, the team would all go for breakfast.  But let me assure you this was not to your traditional “Irish breakfast” of cornflakes and toast, but to a dish called 'nasi katok' which is spicy chicken and rice. The rest of the day was our own until we had to return at 4 pm for a full 11 v 11 game in front of the Crown Prince. He never misses a day’s training.

And while we would be doing our warm up, we would hear the roar of the police sirens down the motor way. Then ten police men on bikes and two jeeps would arrive accompanying the Prince, who was driving his Ferrari into the training ground. The police and the club directors make a guard of honour for him, and then he is escorted into his private suite which looks over the training pitches. 

This became my routine in Brunei - run after run, and game after game, which ultimately I found a bit boring.  I did however enjoy Saturdays because the ‘import players’ would be joined by 6 footballers from various parts of the world to play 11 v 11 against the local players. What I found with the local players is that they resented the imports because they were well aware that the import players were typically earning a much bigger salary than they did.

Saturdays quickly became the highlight of my week along with the challenge of beating the local players.  Every game would consist of rash tackles and heated arguments between the Ghana centre forward and the Brazilian centre half with almost the entire local team.  After my years of getting kicked up and down pitches in the LOI by the likes of Alan Reynolds, Owen Heary and many more, I think eventually the locals realised that maybe the skinny Irish import was a lot tougher than they thought! 

In November I was delighted to see a friendly face in Eamon Zayed who came to check out DPMM. Eamon, who everyone knows, was just after having a great season in LOI, so there was a big fuss about him when he came to the club; however, after two days Eamon could see Brunei was not the place for him. It was very refreshing and I was often amused to hear Eamon’s Dublin accent snapping at some of the slack performances put in by a few of the players. It cheered me up greatly and so I was naturally sad to see him cut his time short and head to Iran.

As Christmas passed and we headed into January I was thankful to have finally won over the respect of my Croatian manager and teammates.  I had worked really hard and enjoyed the labour that came with getting match fit again. While the footballing side of things was going great for me, my family were finding it increasing difficult to settle in Brunei, and my daughter was very homesick.  After a great deal of consideration I realised it was time for me to make the difficult decision as to whether to put football or my family first. My wife and I discussed it and we decided it was time to bring our kids home, so reluctantly I met with management and asked them to release me from the squad. 

My overall experience of DPMM was that it was definitely hard work, but I learned an awful lot during my time with the club, and was able to experience a totally different culture.  All in all, I think it was definitely an adventure worth experiencing!