You could never accuse Paul Anstee of being one of those glory-boy football fans.

How could he be? He was born in Gibraltar and since they were accepted into UEFA in 2013 has been a hugely loyal supporter of the footballing minnows.

Anstee was born on ‘the Rock’ 48 years ago and lived there for the first 13 years of his life before moving to England with his family.

The easy option in footballing terms, of course, would have been to support his adopted country and although he watched England a couple of times at Wembley when he was younger once Gibraltar started rubbing shoulders with football’s big boys he had eyes only for one team.

“I supported England from afar when I was younger,” said Anstee, who these days lives in Cirencester. “But once Gibraltar came on board and started playing against all the other top teams I had no option but to start supporting the country of my birth.”

And he’s a proper supporter, too, travelling home and away to watch a team that have so far failed to pick up a point in 18 Euro and World Cup qualifying games.

That has not dented Anstee’s enthusiasm for all things Gibraltar football, however, even though they have to play all their ‘home’ games in Faro in Portugal because their Victoria Stadium in Gibraltar is deemed not up to standard. They can’t play just over the border in Spain either because of the ongoing political tensions between the two countries

“My first Gibraltar game was against Scotland at Hampden Park in March 2015,” Anstee recalled. “I remember it was 1-1 in the first half and then we went and hit the crossbar. That was as good as it got because we lost 6-1 but I remember the Gibraltar fans – there were about 1,000 of us – singing to the Scotland supporters, ‘You’ve never seen the sun!’. It was brilliant, they had no comeback to that.”

Anstee’s next trip six months later took him rather further afield – to Tbilisi in Georgia – where he saw his team lose 4-0.

“We went via Kiev in Ukraine,” said Anstee, sounding rather like a male version of Judith Chalmers off TV holiday programme ‘Wish You Were Here…?’ “There were only six Gibraltar fans there but we were very well looked after.”

Anstee, who works for Northrop Grumman, goes to the games with fellow Gibraltarian Nicholas ‘Smudger’ Smith who he knows through work and who lives in Bishop’s Cleeve.

Anstee also saw Gibraltar lose 6-0 at home to Scotland in a Euro quailfier and has only just returned from Faro for a World Cup qualifying game which saw his team beaten 4-0 by Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But while they are struggling to get a point on the field, Gibraltar’s football chiefs are certainly scoring points off the pitch because while Faro is closer than Gibraltar for Anstee, for the majority of their fans a home game means a four-hour road trip to see their team play.

“The Gibraltar FA put on free travel for the fans to get to Faro and admission is free,” said Anstee. “There was a crowd of 805 for the game against Bosnia.”

There was a similar number of Gibraltar fans for the Scotland game a couple of years earlier but 11,000 Scots on tour helped swell the crowd to 12,000!

Anstee is already looking forward to the qualifying draw for Euro 2020, although football’s powers-that-be will be hoping for none of the complications that marked the 2016 qualifying draw when Gibraltar were pulled out of the hat in the same group as Spain so had to be redrawn.

“It could only happen to us,” laughed Anstee, who has many happy memories playing football in the country of his birth in his formative years.

“I played at school and was a midfielder,” he said, “and I used to get quite a lot of goals. When I moved to England I continued to play football and enjoyed it.”

However, that was until he discovered hockey.

“I was at school in Portsmouth – my dad was an MoD contractor,” said Anstee, who is a Portsmouth football fan. “We used to have sports periods on a Wednesday afternoon.

“We’d already played football when this big PE teacher said, ‘Right, you’re playing hockey next’. I didn’t want to play hockey but he was a big bloke!

“I remember the ball came to me. I didn’t want it, I didn’t want to be on the pitch so I just passed it to the next person.

“The PE teacher was impressed because hockey is a passing game and he said,’You’re a hockey player!”

Since then hockey has dominated Anstee’s sports playing life. He was pretty good at it too, playing at national league level with Gloucester City as well as playing for the Combined Services, City of Portsmouth and at county and South of England level.

These days he is chairman of Cirencester Hockey Club where he also coaches and when he’s not at work or following FC Gibraltar around Europe he can usually be found at Deer Park School, which is the home of the hockey club.

“Once I discovered hockey, I didn’t want to play football anymore,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to get injured playing football which would mean I couldn’t play hockey.”

Put him on the spot and ask him what is more important to him – Gibraltar football or Cirencester Hockey Club – and he hesitates before saying “Cirencester Hockey Club”.

“It has to be the hockey,” he adds. “I’ve been involved with Cirencester for 20 years and it’s been such a big part of my life.”

He doesn’t play these days – “I want to be able to get up in the morning and walk without it hurting,” he laughs – and eventually when he has stopped working he says he would like to return to live in Gibraltar.

Cirencester Hockey Club officials can console themselves that his ‘Gexit’ is unlikely to be for a few years yet and by the time he returns to the Rock, the footballing landscape in Gibraltar – who became members of FIFA in 2016 – may look a little different.

They won’t be able to alter the fact that they have only about 30,000 people living there of course but in years to come they could have a spanking brand new stadium.

That’s because UEFA have said they would fund the construction of a 4,000 to 6,000 seat venue at some stage in the future.

That’s great news for all football fans in Gibraltar and it’s great news for Anstee – although he may have to put his hand in his pocket when he goes to home games in future because it’s unlikely the Gibraltar FA will be offering free admission into their new ground!