Movers Make Waves In The Caribbean

The island of San Andres is home to a Colombian second-tier side

- Carl Worswick

Amid the plod of a steady reggae beat and under a raging Caribbean sun, the mid-afternoon soporific air is suddenly disturbed. “Yeahhhh monnn!” booms the stadium announcer, as a broken Creole voice crackles from a nearby transistor radio. The teams creep from beneath the shade into the 38-degree heat. Overhead, a huge Saint Andrew’s flag wriggles across a sea of hands.

Real San Andres, one of South America’s newest and most peculiar football clubs, are about to play their final game of the season. They haven’t won a league match at their Estadio Erwin O’Neil all year and today’s Colombian second-division game is a dead rubber. Yet the ground’s main stand still bustles with over a thousand people.

“I didn’t even use to like football,” confesses 34-year-old car mechanic Orlando while gurgling a drop of rum into a plastic cup. “But now we have a team, I’m a big fan.”

Just a few months ago, Orlando’s club was known as Real Santander, a team based in the eastern Colombian city of Floridablanca, not far from the Venezuelan border. Formed in 2006, they had struggled to make ends meet for over a decade. With just a handful of fans and fed up of begging the local council for cash, Real Santander decided to look for a new home.

Three offers came in from across the country, but one immediately stood out – the only snag being the unusual proposal was located 700 miles away.