It did not take Lee Bowyer long to understand the scale of the task. Having won promotion on a shoestring at Charlton and escaped relegation despite financial meltdown at Birmingham, he was fashioning a reputation for football miracles.
This one involved trying to reach next summer's World Cup with Montserrat, a tiny British overseas territory with a population of less than 5,000, and it soon became clear it came with a difference because some of his players no longer played football.