My name is Gareth Johnson and I am one of the original founding members of the Nauru Soccer Federation, as well as a member of the team trying to bring soccer/football to the island.
Quite how I got here I am not sure, but this is my Nauru story.
Table of Contents
Wanderlust
I’m originally from London in the United Kingdom and, due in much part to family, am an avid Arsenal fan, something I hope you don’t hold too much against me! When I was 21, I moved to the Cayman Islands as a bartender, before working on cruise ships and eventually ending up in China as an English teacher.
It was here that I would make the most pivotal decision in my life: that to start the adventure travel company Young Pioneer Tours, a choice that would eventually lead me to Nauru. Over the 18 years of the company, which began taking people to North Korea, we slowly expanded across the globe, which eventually saw us running tours to Nauru.
Starting the Nauru Soccer Federation
To the uninitiated, Nauru is the least visited country on earth, so I decided to run tours here! It was during this pre-Covid time that I got to fall in love with the island and learn what it was all about. This included positives, such as the friendliness of the people, but also negatives related to the image of the country, as well as the problems associated with obesity and the like. It was during this time that I met Paul Watson and the idea was put forward to further football in Nauru.
The Coronavirus put paid to this temporarily, but on our return meetings were had, Dave Kitson was appointed and things started to move quickly, with us even starting to sell our own shirts. Things then started to slow again before my old football pal Charlie Pomroy got involved, and now we are once again looking to the future.
The future of Nauru Soccer?
This is something I no longer want to put timeframes on, but I am still confident about. In the near future, I want to just see us playing some matches, with a game against American Samoa or Kiribati being mooted at various times.
In the long-term, who knows? But I think Oceania and eventually FIFA membership has to be where we eventually want to be. Right now, though, I simply hope to enjoy being part of the journey to wherever it is that we go.