Video game fanatic travels more than 1,000 miles to achieve dream

A video game fanatic who travelled more than 1,000 miles for a football match achieved his "dream" of seeing his adopted club play in the flesh on Saturday.

Italian Andrea Lai has been playing the Football Manager series for almost 20 years and one day chose Coleraine Football Club, at random, as his new team to manage.

Last week, Lai traveled from Italy to Northern Ireland to see the Bannsiders play their final league game of the season as they pipped Glentoran to second place and a European spot.

He had first played as the club seven years ago and has won a heap of virtual silverware since.

'Enormous to me'

Lai is from Imola in Italy and supports Bologna alongside Coleraine.

The 39 year old, who travelled alone, said his trip to Northern Ireland was "wonderful".

"Astonishing - it was enormous to me because for many years I was considering coming, but it was too far," he told BBC News NI.

"I decided to come by myself. I enjoyed some of the great landscapes in Northern Ireland, but the main reason, really, it was the Saturday match against Glentoran, and then I built my trip based on it."

His love for the club started when he "randomly selected" the team which has since gone from semi to professional status.

"I start playing with this non-pro team and I totally fell in love for it. The part-time contract, all the players, and bringing them to success, winning the premiership, winning the Irish Cup, and bringing Coleraine in the European competition was awesome."

Lai started following Coleraine in real life too.

"I started purchasing items from the online shop," he added.

Through this he got to know people involved in the club and, last month, made the decision to come to the last game of the league season.

And success beckoned for his adopted club as they qualified for European football for the first time since 2022.