Blake, the trial period, how did you feel?

I wasn’t nervous. I felt good. I knew what I could do. All I wanted was a chance to impress. And it came off. 

Best memory so far?

Probably the goal I scored on debut at home. First home game I opened the scoring and got an assist. To celebrate in front of the Prince and my Mum who came to watch. Pretty special.

Great moment that’ll stay with me for the rest of my career. I got man of the match and was in the S-League team of the week. 

Blake's mum saw him score his debut S-League goal, a classy header.

 

How’s life in Brunei?

It’s great. My aim was full-time football. And I’m living it, that’s what I want to do. So many things have happened over the last two months. 

An average day in Brunei for you?

We may do a gym session in the morning then more of a football session in the afternoon. 

It’s fairly quiet here so you can focus on your football but there are some nice places like national parks. We sometimes chill out there or some nice cafes.

I live in a nice gated community, so there are a pool and a gym to use. There are always people around there. 

But there’s not much downtime due to training, and that’s the way I like it. 

How do you find the culture in a Muslim country like Brunei?

Great. Very respectful people. I can’t fault them. Sometimes training will stop during prayer time, but it’s not a problem.

I once was in a warm-up and went to close someone down and I didn’t realize the prayer came on and so we stopped. We pray before games. I’m enjoying the whole experience. 

Before I came here I did some research on Brunei but I’d never heard much of Brunei, but I’m enjoying it and people are great.

And with my curly hair, I kinda stand out and people look at me. Now people know who I am they ask for photos in the street! That doesn’t happy back home in the NPL. 

 

S-League standard?

We’re early in our season (four games) and there some strong teams. One team is Albirex who are actually a J-League club based in Singapore and they went undefeated all last year. They’re strong. As is Tampines Rovers who are top of the league. 

We fly into Singapore for away games the night before, play and leave the night after so three days in Singapore in total. It’s only a 90-minute flight. It hasn’t affected my performance wise. I don’t mind the flights every two weeks. 

Your coach at DPMM FC and your teammates?

Adrian Pennock, he’s from England and formerly an assistant with Tony Pulis. The fitness coach is also from England. They come from a similar football culture to Australia which is good. His family is back home in England and knows what it’s like to be a player away from home in my case.

He’s done well and he’s very respected here in Brunei and as the results show, he’s getting a lot out of the local players and foreign players like me. 

He’s come in and changed things and it’s working. 

We have Charlie Clough, who’s played in League One and Two in England for Bristol Rovers and Barnet. 

We also have a Belarus national team player Andrey Varankow who played against Neymar at the Olympics. Some good local players too and if we’re doing well, apparently we can get a full stadium around 28,000. 

The Prince of Brunei I’m told is football mad. He’s your owner as well?

Yes, he owns the club and is at nearly every training session. He loves his football. Absolutely loves football. We train at times that suit his schedule. We even met him when we were invited to his 45th birthday party. 

I’m guessing it’s a bigger function than your average NPL owner’s birthday?

Ha! Yes. It was pretty good. 

We had a singer called Jessica Sanchez, who’d won American Idol. And the Indonesian band called Republic, I think, who are really big, and the food was amazing. And I got to meet some of the Royal Family.