Njarðvík FC: I came for gaming nostolgia, I stayed for the tractor-driving goalkeepers and the semi-pro heroism of Njarovik FC.

As human beings, we are all allotted a finite supply of heartbeats before we’re marched off to the cosmic departure lounge to await our final boarding call. Most people spend theirs on noble pursuits: romance, adventure, perhaps even learning to poach an egg. I, meanwhile, invested mine in Football Manager 2008, an era of my life in which I essentially became a sleep-deprived Icelandic oligarch, lovingly steering KR Reykjavik to Champions League victory after fifteen seasons of tactical tinkering. You know, the kind of obsessive behaviour normally reserved for people who collect commemorative teaspoons or know the personal best runway lengths of every airport in Scandinavia.

So, naturally, when I rocked up in Keflavík, there was only one thing to do: go on pilgrimage to the first real-life ground my digital super team ever strutted across. I approached it via a Frisbee Golf National Park, because of course I did. Iceland is the sort of place where you can’t walk five metres without encountering extreme weather or a man called Einar who owns both a chainsaw and an advanced degree in geothermal engineering.

And then I saw it. The Njarovik stadium. My eyes lit up like a Kuwaiti oil field during Gulf War 1. A comparison that feels both dramatic and yet fully accurate, such was my emotional combustion. Here stood the team in my FM save who reliably offered six points and a cup bye: the footballing equivalent of a comfort blanket, or that friend who always cancels plans and thus becomes the unsung hero of your social life.

But meeting them in real life? It felt like meeting a hero. Not a Marvel hero, obviously. More like the kind of hero who manages to eat spaghetti in a white shirt without emerging looking like a crime scene. But still a hero.

The pitch, on closer inspection, looked freshly ploughed. As in: if a tractor rolled across it that morning, no one would bat an eyelid. In fact, the local goalkeeper probably is the tractor driver. Dual-wielding two professions with the stoic resignation of a man who knows he must both save goals and the harvest.

The clubhouse was modest in the “we-have-a-budget-and-we-are-not-afraid-to-stick-to-it” way that only Icelandic semi-pro football can deliver. Despite the grievous simulated batterings I’ve inflicted on this team over the years, in the real world they’ve collected a surprising amount of silverware, like a magpie with ambition and a trophy cabinet.

The stand, for all its smallness, was immaculate. The sort of clean that suggests someone has very strong feelings about pressure washers. You could easily picture yourself standing there on match day, drink in hand, chanting enthusiastically while the local wind system attempts to exfoliate your skin off your skull.

And then there were the changing rooms, and the brisk, no-nonsense march to the pitch. A walk that must feel, to any player, like they’re emerging into the gladiatorial roar of dozens upon dozens of fans. Maybe hundreds, if the weather’s OK.

In the end, I was delighted. The ground looked exactly as I hoped: scruffy, earnest, heroic in the way only an Icelandic football ground can be. A place where dreams are forged, ploughed, and possibly fertilised.