Former Gravesend & Northfleet and Erith & Belvedere player Gary Groom on helping England over-50s win the World Nations Cup in Spain

A former semi-professional footballer has again been celebrating international glory - this time on foreign soil.

Gary Groom helped England over-50s win the World Nations Cup in August 2023 at St George’s Park and also claimed The Walking Football Association National Finals crown with his local club, Bexley, that same year.

And the ex-Gravesend & Northfleet and Erith & Belvedere utility man helped England to World Nations Cup glory once more in Spain last month.

Groom said: “We had a tough opener against Spain, the host nation, and at least half of their squad are expats.

“Some of them had played semi-professional football in England before so they had some good players. We started with a 2-2 draw and I got a good equaliser.

“It was 30-degree heat all week so that was tough. We had 10 games in four days!

“In the afternoon of the first day, we played Scotland. It was a bit cagey but we nicked the goals and won 3-0. So we had four points after the first day.

“The second morning, we beat Basque 5-0 and I got a goal. We beat Italy - Italy seemed to be one of our main rivals, as well as Spain in our group because there were two groups of eight.

“They had some drop-outs where, unfortunately, Nigeria and Rwanda didn’t get their visas in time.

"So, they re-jigged the tournament to have two groups of eight and the top four from each went through.

“We played really well against Italy. They did nick a goal at the end but it was still a 3-1 win.

“We won every game in our group, except the Spain one that we drew, so that led us onto the Friday where you play three games on the same day - the quarter-final, the semi-final and the final.”

The knockout stages saw England again come up against two of their main rivals.

“In the