Cork a stroll for Iraq vet

For most sportspeople, the suggestion of Iraq as the next step in a fledgling career might, you’d imagine, hasten the search for a new agent.

But when new Neptune recruit Nigel Byam left down the phone after a call from his agent in 2012 he ended up in central Iraq in Al Hillah, a city sitting on a branch of the Euphrates River 100km from Baghdad.

Look up the country on the travel guide, Lonely Planet, and the first sentence you read, unsurprisingly, is a warning against ‘all travel to parts of Iraq and against non-essential travel to the rest of the country’.