The New Orleans Irish pub football team that became family

When Stephen Rea moved from Belfast to New Orleans in the summer of 2004, he struggled to find a bar where he could watch Premier League football.

A friend suggested he contact an Irish pub called Finn McCool’s, owned by a couple from Belfast.

When he emailed to ask whether they were showing the Chelsea vs Manchester United game, the owner replied: “Come on down and meet the lads.”

Those “lads” went on to form a football team that would turn into something more like family than friends when Hurricane Katrina hit a year later.

“We were all ex-pats, and we had no community or family, so we were each others’,” Mr Rea said.

The group, from countries including Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands and South Africa, started playing monthly friendlies in preparation for the first ever competitive match, which was scheduled for September 2005.

But at the end of August Hurricane Katrina swept in, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing about one million.

It was the most expensive natural disaster in United States history and caused destruction along the Gulf of Mexico’s coast.

In New Orleans, the failure of the levee system left about 80% of the city under water.

On 27 August 2005 Mr Rea was sitting in Finn McCool’s with his teammates, discussing the next day’s match.

“Most of us were acting like it was a normal Saturday,” he said.

They knew the hurricane had hit Florida and claimed nine lives but with Florida three states away, the teammates were not overly concerned.

“Living in New Orleans, you get very blasé about hurricanes.”

One of his teammates mentioned that their friendly might be called off.

They turned out to be right,” Mr Rea said.

“Katrina took a jog to the east, right at the last minute.

“You could feel it in the air that something was coming.”

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Mr Rea’s phone started to ring. It was his then-wife’s family, frantically phoning to check if they were OK.

They decided to evacuate, along with a friend who was staying in the city temporarily – a “young Irish lad” who if they had not helped would have tried to leave on a bike.

Because of their last-minute departure, it took hours for the trio to get out of New Orleans.

They spent more than three months living away from New Orleans before they could move back.

“There was no electricity in much of the city,” Mr Rea said.

“No traffic lights, no hospitals, no schools. Dentists were setting up in the zoo. It was like the wild west.

“The National Guard were everywhere, it was like being back in Belfast in the 1970s.”

During this difficult period, Finn McCool’s Football Club provided a form of relief.

“We had an email chain with all of us, and that was a great help,” says Mr Rea.

“Right after the hurricane, we didn’t even know who was alive.”

All were soon accounted for, but they had other losses to deal with.

Most of the players had lost their houses in the flooding, and many had also lost their jobs.

“One of the guys spent two days on his roof. He had to be evacuated by helicopter,” he said.

That November, one of the players organised a Thanksgiving dinner for the team.

“I doubt I will ever have a better Thanksgiving in my life,” said Mr Rea.

“It was the most emotional, the most poignant celebration we will ever have.”

By December, the team started training again.

Within a couple of years, they were promoted. Not long after, they won the league.

The team is still going strong today and Mr Rea is still playing.

“I’m no longer a box-to-box dynamic midfielder,” he said.

“I just come on for the last 10 minutes and try not to get injured.”