‘I just wanted a chance’: the Mansfield goalkeeping coach who fled Syria

Fahd Saleh is proud to work for Mansfield Town: ‘I didn’t come to the UK to get benefits and sit on the sofa, I came to get a job and develop myself’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

For Fahd Saleh, a conversation at the Job Centre sticks in the memory. A couple of years after arriving in Mansfield as a Syrian refugee hoping to land trials at Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea to continue his career, he was on the receiving end of a cold and quizzical look when asked which vocation he ideally planned to pursue.

“I mentioned that I was a goalkeeper and that I’d like to work for a team,” Saleh says. “The lady, and I can still picture the conversation now, she said to me: ‘You are dreaming.’ Now I would really like to see her to tell her that I’m working for a professional team called Mansfield Town and I’m very proud of where I am.”