Gillingham goalkeeper coach Deren Ibrahim has achieved many things in his short career. He has been a coach at Priestfield for nearly three years; has recently been appointed Chairman of SCEFL side Sutton Athletic but how many know that the keeper is also one of the county’s most recent full internationals.

In the week that England captain Harry Kane questioned players pulling out of the England squad for the Nations League games KSN spoke to Deren about his call up for the 2018 World Cup when he represented Gibraltar in the qualifiers and he told us, “Of course I am very proud of it!

“I think every game for your country should be an honour whether its Gibraltar, whether its England, it is an honour to be called up as it shows that you are doing something right, whether there are thousands to choose from or just a few hundred to choose from, it shows that you are the best sixteen to twenty people in that category!” 

“When you are in the moment it is very tough and I think people sometime look past it at times as every time I step onto a football pitch, I want to win a game of football whether it is a five-a-side or a kick about with my nieces and nephews.” 

“So, it was tough going away with Gibraltar knowing the level that we were at with games coming up and I’ll always remember that after the first “camp” that I joined we had Estonia and then Belgium. We were in Gibraltar and Sky Sports were showing clips of the Belgians and realising that I was going to play against them the next week!”  

Deren then explained how he came to play for Gibraltar. “They weren’t in UEFA or FIFA at the time and eventually got accepted into UEFA which meant that they could then enter the World Cup.

“My Nan was from Gibraltar and I always knew that growing up, and to be honest didn’t really think too much about it – it didn’t register that now that they we in there could be a chance and it didn’t cross my mind.” 

“Then one day, I was sitting in the office at Dartford and the phone went, and it was Jeff Wood the old Charlton keeper who was the manager at the time. The call took me a bit by surprise and he told me that I could play for them and then it escalated quite quickly from there.

“I knew that I could play but there was still the thought at the back of your mind that something was going to go wrong.” 

“At the time I think I was the only one not playing on The Rock, it was funny as all the players and people around the team thought that their League was the best League which is fine. But I’m sure that there were some political views in there somewhere that meant I wouldn’t get the call.

“But Jeff came in and I was the only one travelling over and to be fair, the rest of the squad were brilliant with me, they took me in, there was no language barrier which was great.

“I felt that as soon as I stepped onto the grass, I was one of the boys and regardless of who we were playing, we just wanted to win games of football – the level dictated that over the course of the ninety minutes. And once the other saw that you are OK in goal then they took me in even more and then it became a fantastic experience.

“I think I played nine of the ten qualifiers – it was a fantastic time for me and hopefully later on in my career, I can get back there in some form of coaching which is something I would love to do, perhaps even set up a couple of goalkeeper clinics as well later on in life.”