By Simon Clifford

My third movie was one that took me to Rome, to train two boys Allesandro and Gianfranco and later in Los Angelos to film ‘Kicking and Screaming’ which is produced by Universal Studios and is released in Summer 2005. It was my first visit to Rome, a beautiful city and I thoroughly enjoyed working with the boys.

I held trials around Europe including at Garforth Town Football Club, in December 2003. The trials attracted two hundred hopefuls from various soccer schools around the country all wanting the chance to show their footballing skills to earn themselves a place on the film.

Filming the film itself was a wonderful experience, I love Los Angeles and have been out there many times. It was my first time that I had ever flown first class in my life, I spent the journey sat next to the Vice President of Disney. This was fantastic, he invited us to the Disney Studios and showed us around.

I have many friends out in Los Angeles and when organising my trip I got in touch with Parminder Nagra from 'Bend It Like Beckham’ to ask if she would like to meet up. After hearing nothing, to my surprise Parminder had phoned the office to find out when my flight was arriving in Los Angeles so that she could meet me at the airport.

We went to lunch for the afternoon and then I invited Parminder to come on the set of ‘Kicking and Screaming’, there was nothing better than being chauffeured onto the set that day with one of the stars of the biggest football film in history. I couldn’t have had a better introduction, it was quite a day.