YOU thought that England didn’t cut it on grass? Compared to the beach football team, we were brilliant.

“I went 40-odd games before we won one,” recalls Andrew Grainger, the goalkeeper.

“I’m not sure we took it very seriously at first. The boys would be in a bar all night and then play football in 36 degrees the following morning. It was like a pub tea, at times.”

Now 31, Andrew captained the rugby team at Newcastle Royal Grammar School, had a 12-month professional contract with Darlington, signed for Barry Town in the League of Wales – “John Fashanu took over and brought in a Nigerian goalkeeper” – and after a short spell at Charlton, returned to play for Newcastle Benfield, then in the Northern Alliance.

“It was meant to be temporary.

I was waiting for the phone to ring,” he admits. “To be honest, it very rarely did.”

Twelve years later he enjoyed a sun-blessed benefit, also against Darlington, the column’s first (and possibly last) match of the pre-season.

The invitation to represent England – once more unto the beach – came while he was with Charlton. “My agent rang.

I’d never seen beach football, knew nothing about it, but they wanted me to fly to Portugal on the Monday morning and I wasn’t going to turn that down.”

By 10am, 2,000 were queuing outside the stadium. The match didn’t kick off until three.

“It’s played on soft sand, very physically demanding,” says Andrew, a security company surveyor. “In normal football a goalkeeper can spend 85 minutes standing about. This is played in three 12-minute sessions and a lot of the time it’s like shooting practice.”

National fortunes improved when the FA assumed official responsibility for the team. “It was three lions on your shirt and all that, and I was very proud to wear the badge,” says Andrew.

Now England are up to the giddy heights of 43rd in the world rankings – after Brazil, the grass trackers are down to 20th.

Russia go best with the grain, Brazil are second, El Salvador sixth and Iran tenth.

Andrew made 67 appearances, retired when he got married – “it was taking up all my holidays from work” – counts among the highlights saving a penalty from Eric Cantona.

“He was playing for France, raising the beach game’s profile over there. He tried to chip me, didn’t think very hard about it. I just stood up and caught it.”

At the RGS he was two years ahead of Fraser Foster, now with Celtic and England’s third choice keeper in the World Cup finals.

“I bumped into the sports master the other day and he told me I was better than Fraser was at that age. I told him thanks very much, but Fraser was in Brazil and I was at Benfield.”

He helped the team win the Northern League double in 2009- 10, an outstanding goalkeeper and a thoroughly nice chap.

“Even when he won £40 on the domino card he used it to buy us two footballs,” recalls club vicechairman Alan Young.

Two Saturdays ago, they beat Darlington 1883 2-1 in his testimonial. Happy as a sand boy? “Oh, definitely.”