When Holbeck Moor FC defender Tiago Korynek moved to the south of England for university, his new flatmates saw his name, heard him speaking to his mum in Portuguese, and were excited about their exotic new arrival. Tiago’s mum is Brazilian, and his surname comes from his half-Polish father. “When they heard I’m from Middlesbrough they were like, ‘That can’t be right,’” Tiago laughs. “I was thinking, ‘I’m here just for the degree, I’ll be back up north at some point.’”

Tiago moved to Leeds in 2016 for work. It’s not quite as north as Middlesbrough, but, “It’s been good. Prior to moving I’d never been, but it’s still the north.”

One evening during lockdown, he started “feeling a little bit too full after eating too much food” at his home in Armley, and decided he needed to try getting fit again. He had played football casually with seven-a-side teams, but had never played for a ‘proper’ club. “Eleven-a-side can be a different kettle of fish,” he says. “But I was up for it, just to get fit mainly.“

Unbeknown to Tiago, his wife Bethany “kind of went behind my back and started contacting people in the local Leeds Facebook groups. There were a couple of leads for where I might be able to play football and I ended up one day in the middle of summer on Holbeck Moor.”

Sponsored by The Square Ball, Holbeck Moor FC was founded by Ewan Speck in partnership with Slung Low. The club was set up due to the lack of access to facilities in Holbeck and the surrounding area. The mortality rate in Holbeck is higher than the average in the rest of Leeds, yet it had no adult sports team. Holbeck Moor FC is a subs free club, aiming to provide the physical, mental, and social benefits of exercise to people who may ordinarily feel excluded from such opportunities.

“It’s as welcoming a place as you’re going to get,” Tiago says. “When my missus was looking around for teams looking for players, I went down to a few. A lot of them had a lot of arguing between the players or little cliques. Whereas here, because there are so many people — some can come to every training session, but a lot of people are in one week then busy working another week or can’t make it — it’s balanced. There aren’t any cliques or over aggressive personalities. It’s good.”

Tiago’s main reason for joining was to simply get fitter. Players have the option to just train if they don’t want to play matches, but he soon volunteered to play for the competitive side. Joining an eleven-a-side team can be an intimidating experience, particularly for an adult who hasn’t been involved in that environment since their youth, or at all.

“Especially when you start from the beginning,” Tiago says. “You’re kind of like, ‘I’m in the team, but am I in the team because there’s nobody else?’ And then it turns out, ‘Oh, I’m in the team ‘cos I should be.’”

He might share the name of a classy international playmaker, but Tiago takes pride in an entirely different skillset as a centre-back.

“I’m about as Tony Pulis as it comes. I’m the kind of defender that just cares about how many goals we concede.”

The Pulis reference is sincere. While football started becoming obsessed with defenders playing out from the back and goalkeepers thinking they’re midfielders, Tiago started supporting Stoke City, delighting in the (long) throwback approach of players like Ryan Shawcross and Robert Huth.

“It started off as a joke really. I’m about as old school as you can get — I like crap defenders that just lump it long. Under Tony Pulis it was a load of average players, but that time they got to the FA Cup final against Man City was mainly because they grinded out one-nils.”

We’re sitting in the beer garden outside The Holbeck WMC on a cool spring evening. As we’re about to say goodbye, I ask Tiago if there’s anything I’ve not asked that I should have. Or is there anything in particular he’d like me to include in our interview.

He pauses to think, then starts laughing.

“They should give me a try up front one time.”

Anybody interested in joining Holbeck Moor FC can email [email protected] or call 07305 155698. We can also heartily recommend pre-game drinks, and post-game drinks, at The Holbeck, the oldest social club in Britain.

More info:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 07305 155698
Website: https://www.slunglow.org/hmfc/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SlungLow ⬢