‘We are just getting started’: Gulf United upbeat ahead of new UAE First Division season

At just before 7am most days, a large chunk of the Dubai workforce are still rubbing sleep out their eyes and considering how best to avoid Hessa Street on the morning commute. Rather than tackling the traffic, the footballers of Gulf United FC have been more concerned with opposition players at that time over recent weeks. In a bid to consolidate themselves in the second tier of UAE professional football , the five-year-old club have been training at the crack of dawn ahead of the new campaign. That has included friendly matches against like-minded opposition. It has meant coaxing qualified referees and officials to oversee 90 minutes before heading off to start their own days at work. Rousing themselves for a game at that time of the day is a novel experience for most players. For a pre-season fixture against Arabian Warriors, one of them even had to tether his well-behaved dog to one of the poles of the scaffolding stands at the Jebel Ali Centre of Excellence while he played, before taking him for his morning walk. “We try to keep it as European as possible,” said Mohammed Jarad of the club’s commitment to early morning training. “That is not being disrespectful. It is just what we know about how to do things.” Judged on the evidence of their short lifespan so far, the club’s methods are proving successful. Jarad, a British Iraqi from Manchester, is one of the co-founders. He arrived in Dubai six years ago along with two life-long friends who he worked with previously at the Bobby Charlton Soccer Schools in the UK, and they promptly set up Gulf United. After blazing a trail through the lower leagues of the pro game, winning successive promotions from the Third then Second Divisions, their first team saw their progress checked last season. They finished third from last in UAE Division One, and readily admit they only survived demotion because there were two teams who were even further off the pace than them. The new season has brought with it a change at the helm. The two Taylors – first Steven, then Neil – have been and gone from the manager’s office. Now Richard Peniket, the club’s leading scorer, has hung up his boots and is starting out in management instead. “If you do really well at 31 as a manager, then when you are 40 you could be anywhere,” Peniket said of opting to retire while there were still potentially goals left in him. “But as a player, you maybe have a window of three or four years. Are you realistically going to go to the Pro League ? Best case scenario, you would get one season, so this is about looking to the future for where I can go and what I can do.” Having started his career on the books of Fulham, Peniket played age-level football for Wales, before turning out for a variety of clubs in England’s National League. When Covid brought a halt to matches in the UK, he took stock of where he was in the game and opted for a change. He made peace with the fact his ensuing move to Dubai, where his sister had been a long-term resident, meant an end to his time as a pro footballer. He played part time for DHL in the Dubai Amateur Football League, and then his career took another turn. “I thought, OK, I’m a pro and am earning good money, but at 28 is the dream of the Championship or Premiership going to happen for me?” Peniket said. “Maybe not, so let’s go and do something else and try a different venture. I took the opportunity to come to Dubai. “In a game in the amateur league I was directly against [Steven Taylor, the former Newcastle United player who was Gulf United’s first manager], and he must have been impressed. “He rang me a month later and that was me, back into professional football. “I have not met many people who have his will to win, or the desire he carries. It was good that someone with that respected what I could do. “It is crazy that it goes from that point to here, where I am now manager of the first team.” He has big boots to fill. Steven Taylor played over 200 times for Newcastle, while his successor, Neil Taylor, played 43 times for Wales and was an Olympian for Great Britain. Peniket hopes his achievements on the field for the team, having been top scorer in each of their promotion campaigns, as well as his work on the training ground, will earn him respect. His full focus is on improving on last season’s league placing. “It was tough, a year of learning where the rules changed and the squad was ripped up,” he said. “It was a completely new squad and we didn’t have the info in the transfer market. You might get a player who might have a great history but you don’t know what they are like as a character. “We stayed up. The league was really competitive, but there were two teams that were poor, and we got a bit lucky because of that. We did enough, and that gives us a great opportunity this season.” Opportunity is the operative word. There are 59 different nationalities at the club from academy level up to the first team, the majority of whom aspire to a career in the professional game. Although rules dictate the first XI must include a number of Emirati players, there is a pathway for all players. Many will be inspired by the changing face of the UAE national team itself, which has recently started selecting players based overseas. “Gulf United supports all kinds of players,” said Saif Al Hameli, one of the Emiratis in the first team. “It is a family club. Whether you are African, European, or from wherever, you are welcome to the family. Everyone is at the same level. So long as you have the spirit and the positive energy, it is not an issue.” Players are given a chance to advertise their abilities in the team, often with a view to being transferred on to larger pro clubs, or for scholarships to attend college in the United States. “It is a journey we are proud of but we feel like we are only getting started now,” Jarad said of the club’s development. “We are scratching the surface of where we want to be. Fundamentally we see ourselves as a football institute not a football club. “That means we are not massively bothered about results. Of course we want to win games, and we have won leagues in the past, but it is about giving pathways and opportunities to players from all over the world. “We want to give opportunities for them to come, play, improve and develop in the right infrastructure.” Maintaining the upward trajectory will only get tougher, given the calibre of clubs they are now competing with. For example, this season they will go up against Emirates Club, who had Andres Iniesta in their line-up last season and, briefly, Benito Carbone as manager before being relegated from the Pro League. “The commercial reality of football clubs in the UAE is challenging, to say the least,” Jarad said. “The First Division is the one where you are going up for the first time against some clubs who are owned locally. “We are not scared of them. We see ourselves as a David and Goliath-type side, and we want to change the face of football. We will do that one step at a time.”

‘We are just getting started’: Gulf United upbeat ahead of new UAE First Division season

Young club know life in second tier of pro game is tough but have big ambitions for developing players