When I wrote my recent article on comically bad soccer teams, I purposefully left out Fort William FC – partly because the team is very, very obscure (Scottish Highland League, anyone?) but also because recent events at the club deserve a full article.
First - some background info on a club that makes NYRB see like an All-Time Brazil XI. Over the past four seasons the Fort have recorded a 5-105-1 record, a run of form that has me searching for (and failing to find) a suitable superlative. They have conceded seven goals for every goal scored, and last season created a new league record, losing all but one of their games (which ended 1-1). They haven’t won a game at all in exactly two years. They have perfected the art of abject failure, and the consistency is almost beautiful to behold.
All of this made the news in 2008 that the club was to become the subject of an American reality TV show in the near future somewhat bemusing, slightly tragic, but ultimately exciting.
“America’s Team FC” is fantasy soccer-meets American Idol. It is an interactive experiment in which the fortunes of “a team renowned for being the worst team in Europe - and perhaps all of professional soccer” will be controlled by fans several hundred miles away. Owners (who will pay $60 for the privilege) can pick the side and manage various aspects of the club. American soccer players will be selected from try-outs across the States and are set to fly in to take part in games. The matches will be broadcast across the globe via a pay-per-view internet feed.
The website promises “personality clashes, heated rivalries, relationships and alliances, team conflicts, torrid romances, and ultimately the unity built between the players and their adopted hometown”, all within the scenic casing of the Scottish highlands, a place where locals are more interested in shinty. I wish I was making this up.
Fort William FC is a quaint, idiosyncratic part of British football, a quirk, a blip in the system. The team play at Claggan Park, a ground the BBC described as the most scenic in Europe. Yet already “merchandise” is being touted on the site, the majority of which does not even include reference to Fort William FC. The long-held tradition of home town players* will be uprooted in place of “soccer” players from across the pond.
The operation has been put on hold, however, for the indeterminable future. While a recent update on the official site has re-iterated the plan it has failed to specify when it will actually come into operation. Meanwhile, the assorted players who make up Fort William's team have doggedly got on with the action, as the season kicked off this August. You can't say they haven't been consistent - losing 5-1, 6-2, 2-0 and 3-0.
*Alright. I may have glossed over the details of “the tradition” in order to make a point. In reality, the fact that Fort William FC is made up of entirely home-town players is because nobody wants to play for them. In fact one Saturday a team was only scraped together on the afternoon of the game, when local bars were searched for able-bodied men.
