WHEN a soccer player reaches the twilight of his career he probably thinks that dreams of international caps were a thing of his childhood.

Not so for Guiseley midfielder Des Hazel, the 30 year-old former Sheffield Wednesday player has received a call up for the island of St Kitts - the homeland of his parents - and is set to play three international matches for them.

Des said: 'This has come as quite a shock to me to get an international call at this late stage of my career.'

His selection has sent some of his teammates dashing for the family heirloom box looking up birth certificates to see if they qualify for the call through some distant relative.

Team mate Simon Parke said: 'I am hoping to discover that I qualify.'

Des is set to leave next Thursday for games between April 1 and 5 in a team run by former Bradford City star Cec Podd.

Podd, who had an 18 year career in the Football League being a big favourite at Bradford C ity, is now Director of Football for St Kitts.

He explained: 'St Kitts only became members of FIFA a few years ago but as such they are now entitled to play international games. I am taking four English-based players over with me to join the 18 man international squad on the island for the Shell Umbro Gold Cup.

Matches will initially be played against the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe and the British Virgin Islands but success could take the lads to the heady heights of facing

Brazil and Mexico in the final stages of the compeition.

Podd, Football in the Community Officer for Leeds United, said that his homeland had kept tabs on his career and five years ago he went to St Kitts to coach one of their league sides. He was so successful that they won the championship.

He was approached to be Director of Football and to run the international team.

As well as Des Hazel the players Podd is taking to St Kitts are all from the Football League.

They are Walsall's Andy Watson, Oxford's Kevin Francis and Millwall's Bobby Bowry.

You will be hard pressed to find St Kitts on your world map. It appears as a tiny dot in the Caribbean Sea south east of Puerto Rioco and north west of Venezuela.

But find it Des will when he jets out to make his international debut after a career which has brought him to non-league football with Guiseley after playing over 300 games and scoring over 40 goals for Rotherham following his £45,000 transfer from Sheffield Wednesday.

He then moved to Chesterfield in 1995 and was in their side for the play-off final at Wembley that year. He played over 360 games in the Football League and joined Guiseley last season.

His season finished early when he went off to Australia to coach and he missed the start of this season returning when his contract was up in Australia.

Des had been set to return to Australia but after getting international clearance he changed his mind and decided he wanted to stay with Guiseley.

He has been sat on the sidelines recently for although his Australian club Joondalup cancelled his contract the Australian FA were a bit slow in moving and without the international clearance being reversed he was not eligible to play for Guiseley.

There was good news on that front however this week when his international clearance came through making him eligible for Wednesday's trip to Radcliffe Borough.

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