ANDY BARRON is, you might say, football’s ultimate journeyman, his travels taking him from Miramar Rangers (New Zealand) to William Carey University (Mississippi), Lisburn Distillery, Canterbury United, Team Wellington, Minnesota Thunder and back to Wellington.

In the middle of it all he picked up a degree in business finance in Mississippi, and these days he’s a senior operations administrator for the wealth division of Westpac Banking Corp in Wellington, managing about €600 million of assets.

The part-time footballer is on holidays at the moment, but he keeps an eye on his iPhone just in case work needs to get in touch. Yesterday was a quiet enough day, he just came on as a sub against Italy in New Zealand’s draw against Italy. The wackiest of all World Cup journeys? Probably.