Floodlit Dreams publisher and author Seth Burkett is currently playing professional football in Sri Lanka. Throughout his time he’ll be blogging on the Floodlit Dreams website and writing a weekly column in the Non-League Paper.

Like all good stories, this one starts with a tweet.

In April, BBC journalist Owen Amos sent a request.

A friend of mine is looking for foreign players to play in a new competition in July and August in SRI LANKA. Expenses paid for right player. Would suit someone playing university first team / good non-league. RT please

A second one followed:

@sethburkett know anyone who might fancy this? Or even do it yourself…?

As it happened, I did quite fancy it. I’d just taken voluntary redundancy from my full-time job as a social media manager. The plan was to write, and I could write anywhere. There was nothing holding me back.

It’s rare that tweets have consequences.

I let Owen know that I was interested and then forgot all about it.

Just over a month later an email landed in my inbox. It was from Thaabit Ahmed, who introduced himself as the 28-year-old manager of the Trinco Titans. An enthusiastic speaker, he told me all about the project and asked if I was interested. I told him I still was, and within minutes he was on the other end of the phone.

How tall am I? I told Thaabit I’m almost six foot, and that was good enough for him. I was the first official signing of Trinco Titans.

I still hadn’t told my girlfriend.

The Trinco Titans were formed to compete in the North East Premier League, a month long tournament that takes place in the area of Sri Lanka affected by the 26-year long civil war. Set up in 2018, it aims to unify the region through sport while showcasing the best talent of the north east. Teams are made up of local players and are each allowed up to three foreign players to help guide those locals and raise the overall standard.

That’s where I come in.

Last season the Titans finished ninth out of twelve. Since then, they’ve been taken over by new co-owners: cricket legends Kumar Sangakarra and Mahela Jayawardena. As soon as I heard that I was in.

The new co-owners promised to help fund an assault on the North East Premier League. They wanted the best. Somehow they ended up with me.

I haven’t even really played football in three years.

Instead, I’ve been playing futsal. Thaabit believes that’s close enough to give me a professional contract. He wants me to play centre back. I thought I’d leave out the fact that I don’t really like heading the ball.

They say that football is all who you know and not what you know, but in this instance I really do feel that I’m taking the mickey.

This opportunity has all come about through a tweet, but really it’s all come about through a youth tournament I played in ten years ago for my local non-league team, Stamford AFC. Led by club legend Guy Walton, we headed to Salvador to compete in the Copa II de Julho. Our first game was an 8-0 battering by Brazil’s under 17 side, and our next games didn’t turn out much better.

But it wasn’t all bad news. A watching Brazilian saw enough to offer me a place in a his team, Sorriso Esporte Clube, for the Copa Sao Paulo – Brazil’s equivalent of the FA Youth Cup. Suddenly I found myself sharing a three-bedroom converted garage in western Brazil with 27 teammates. There were no doors on the toilets and bars on the windows. Exactly what nobody pictures when they hear ‘professional football.’

I wrote my experience up in a book, The Boy in Brazil. Many people have heard of it; few people have read it. The benefit of that is most people assume I had a normal life as a professional footballer in Brazil. The further benefit of that is that ten years later you can sign a professional contract on the other side of the world without the coach ever seeing you in action so long as you’re almost six foot tall – all because there’s a book that proved you once played in Brazil.

After saying ‘yes’ to Thaabit I was filled with reservation. Am I good enough to play at a professional level, even in a country ranked 202 out of 207 by FIFA? Is three years away from playing in non-league enough to forget the basics?

There’s also concern for my safety. After the Easter bombings there was a nationwide curfew. As a result, the Macau national team refused to travel to Sri Lanka to play their World Cup qualifying fixture.

If Sri Lanka isn’t safe for Macau, is it safe for me?

Then, as the weeks went by, a new concern hit. Was any of this actually going to happen?

Thaabit had committed to paying for food, accommodation, visas, flights and also a salary. Three days before the departure date I’d heard nothing. The date came and went. Thaabit got in touch to ask for my passport. The departure date moved again, then again. My fourth set of flights were booked. I asked Thaabit if he could send over the contract.

Hahaha, he replied, you just won’t let that one go, will you?

The day before take-off there was still no sign of a contract. Or a visa. Or flight tickets.

I sent Thaabit a message. He asked me to give him an hour.

Four hours later, a flurry of activity. The visa, contract and flight itinerary all landed in my inbox. It was happening. It was actually happening. This was all real.

Forget the concerns, what better way to see the world than through football?