It’s Sunday and your side have just gone four down. It was the bloody centre-backs, again, getting in each other’s way – leaving that ‘lanky-streak-of-piss’ striker with acres of space to poke it in past the goalkeeper.

You’re not a proper team really. You haven’t been in one of those since school when all the good players made you look vaguely competent until you got found out in a trial at one of the local clubs. Looking round it seems that most people are worse; the ‘keeper isn’t really a ‘keeper. He’s just the fattest one on the team and your also fairly sure that a few of the lads went out last night for a curry and fifteen pints. At least that’s how they are playing, and someone keeps farting at corners.

You hang your head in despair. There’s no fucking way out of this. The opposition are gloating now. They are bringing on all their players who have openly been drinking on the sidelines whilst your star player goes for a piss on the pitch. Cracking.

We need a bit of direction. A bit of organization. All those pretty formations you keep drawing and handing out to the lads are usually ignored and trying to explain to someone what a false nine or liberio is when you know they don’t give a shit is getting depressing. Training is basically non-existent. All the lads ever want to do is shooting practice or mini-games. Trying to get them to run round the pitch is getting harder and harder and you swear someone actually vomited from exhaustion walking to the pitch the other week.

But the game has started up again and you’re chasing another long ball down when it suddenly opens up and you have some space. You decide to press the advantage and gobble up 20-30 yards in front of you. The back peddling centre-backs both go in for the last ditch effort as you near the penalty area. The first one slides miles past you and the second cracks the ball against your shin as you hop over him. The ball is bouncing awkwardly but you are through on goal and sizing up their ‘keeper. He’s closing you down quickly but you reckon you’ve got the time. You hit a delicate chip which would grace any level of football (obviously) and the goalkeeper knows he’s beat. His eyes turn from steely determination to resignation as soon as you make contact with the half deflated pig stomach. It seems like an eternity as you wait for it to drop. It’s dropping, dropping, dropping and you get that feeling of self satisfaction – “this is why I waste my Sundays with these bell-ends, this is what it’s about” – and it hits the top of the bar and goes over. Shit.

Any of this sound vaguely familiar?

For Ivory FC this is what happened most weeks, although they probably don’t hate each other. They were an underperforming Sunday league side from Billericay, Essex which is only famous for being Gavin from Gavin and Stacey’s home town. What’s different for Ivory FC from the story above is that they applied for some help.

They applied to The Great Football Experiment for some proper coaches and help. They are now training with Ray Wilkins, Ray Clemence and Terry Venables to see whether they can be turned from their leagues whipping boys into promotion chasers. As well as this they will be playing a game against some England Legends in December as an experiment to see how far proper coaching can get a team that is below average. You can watch their progress here.

Photo courtesy of The Great Football Experiment.