In July 2012 Geoff Walker, the assistant manager at non-league side Heaton Stannington FC, received a very unexpected text from the club’s manager, Derek Thompson. Nobby Solano’s agent had been in touch to ask Thompson if he could help out some friends of his. The Heaton Stan manager was keen on the idea so he typed out a message to his No2: “Gabon are here for the Olympics. They’ve been looking for a warm-up game.”

Newcastle United were busy, their Under-21 team were away and Heaton Stan were next on the list. With Walker on board, Thompson then phoned captain, centre-back and junior tennis coach Joe Wear. He was resting up at home when he received the call. “It was a bit random, really,” recalls Wear. “It was literally the night before.” Wear was preparing to run the Great North 10k the following morning, so he was reluctant at first. But his manager explained the situation.

“It’s Gabon,” said Thompson.

“Who’s Gabon?” asked Wear.

“They’re playing in the Olympics at St James’ Park and they want a friendly.”

“Oh right. Cool.”

“We didn’t have our best team, to be honest,” Thompson tells me in Grounsell Park’s brick changing rooms. That season, they had faced teams such as Ashington Colliers, Ponteland United and Harraby Catholic Club on their way to winning the Pin Point Recruitment Northern Alliance League Premier Division, but suddenly Thompson had to pull together a team of factory workers, lawyers and builders – some of them quietly hungover from the previous evening – to play Gabon. “Your classic non-league team, a mixture of all sorts,” says Wear.

Men’s football was one of the five sports Gabon entered at the 2012 Olympics. Their squad included a 23-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who had just scored 16 goals for Saint-Étienne in the Ligue 1 season. A year later, he would join Borussia Dortmund for €13m. He has now scored 135 goals in 204 games for the club – and another 23 for Gabon, making him their joint all-time top goalscorer.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in action for Gabon in 2012. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya / Reuters/Reuters

About 24 hours after the game had been offered to Heaton Stan, their cobbled together team climbed off a minibus at Grounsell Park, a ground hidden behind an ATS garage, a chippy and a Chinese takeaway in this small suburb of Newcastle. A few posts on the club’s Facebook and Twitter pages, and non-League forums, meant that some 400 fans had gathered at the ground, standing under the corrugated plastic roof over the main concrete terrace.

Grounsell Park has been the Stan’s home since 1935 and, while you wouldn’t know it was built on top of a disused quarry at first glance, it isn’t what you would call IAAF-approved either. After a quick look around, though, the Gabon team were happy and the game was on.

Well, nearly. Walker got word from one of the Gabon team that their talisman, Aubameyang, had a bit of a problem. He had left his boots at the Hilton Hotel in Gateshead on the other side of the Tyne. So Walker, Aubameyang, a Gabon security guard and one of the coaches piled into his car as they set off across the city, over the Tyne Bridge, to the hotel and back again.

As Walker was chatting to the coach on the way back, he could hear some concerned muttering in the back of the car. “We were heading back over the Tyne Bridge and they were talking away in French. The security guy goes: ‘Can we go back?’ They had match balls they wanted to use that were the same balls they were going to use in the Olympics – so we had to go back again!”

Finally, they were all ready. The Stan set up his team in the 4-4-2 formation that had served them well that season, with Wear handed the task of marking Aubameyang. “I was a little bit tired from the 10k,” he says. “But it wasn’t an opportunity I was going to miss.” Did he have a specific plan to stop him? “Hmmm. Er… no. We knew they were going to be a really good team. So, it was just go out there, work hard, try your best and make it competitive. I think we lost 4-0. To be honest, I didn’t think we did that bad. You could tell Aubameyang was very quick and sharp and I’m honestly not sure if he was putting 100% effort in. He was just a different level.”

“We held our own for a while, but obviously he was the massive difference,” adds Walker. “The pace on him was absolutely electric. It’s funny, I keep saying to everyone, he doesn’t seem to be moving full pelt but he just sort of glides across the pitch, you know what I mean? You could tell he was a player.”

After scoring two and leading Heaton’s defence on a merry dance, Aubameyang trotted off at half time. According to Mark Douglas, a local reporter who went to the game, the Stan were on top for most of the second half. Walker still sounds rueful when he recalls a couple of squandered chances.

Aubameyang in slightly loftier surroundings, scoring for Borussia Dortmund against Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga. Photograph: Lukas Schulze/Bundesliga/Getty Images

The game was supposed to be the friendliest of friendlies, but someone forgot to tell Wear’s centre-back partner, whose bodybuilding frame stacked up against Gabon’s professional athletes. “Craig’s a big lad – if you see him now he’s even bigger than he was then – and he’s quite well known for putting in meaty challenges,” says Wear. “That didn’t go down too well.”

Still, there was a traditional welcome planned for the visiting players and staff after the final whistle. “I’ve played for Heaton Stan for coming up nine years and you get pie and beans after every game – it’s never changed,” says Wear. “It’s class.” Sadly, the Olympians didn’t feel a pie and a pint would fit into their nutritional plans and passed. They did hang about afterwards though.

“The Gabon players were great,” says Walker. “They signed autographs for the little kids after the game, got their photos took. They signed one of their shirts, the whole team and squad. Aubameyang’s is on that, so that’s a nice keepsake.”

The shirt still hangs on the wall of the Grounsell Park bar. Gabon’s Olympic tournament didn’t pan out as planned – a 1-1 draw against Switzerland at St James’ Park was followed by a 2-0 defeat to Mexico in Coventry and a 0-0 draw with South Korea at Wembley that prompted an early exit.

The Stan have enjoyed more memorable days since – they won the treble the next season, topping the league again as well as picking up the Northern Alliance League Cup and the Northumberland Senior Benevolent Bowl. Walker is particularly proud of a 3-2 win against Julio Arca’s South Shields last year – but the day they took on Gabon stands apart.

“It just came out of the blue,” says Walker. “They played here and then on the Tuesday or Wednesday night they were at St James’. It was a bit different for them but they all enjoyed it.”

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