Northern Ireland will be represented at the 2026 World Cup... by two Ulstermen wearing the shirt 'everywhere we go'

Roger Woodend, 51 and originally from Coleraine and now living in Yardley just outside Philadelphia in the USA, will be going to a string of games, joined by his friend Alex Logan, 52, who hails from Ballymoney originally but now lives in Glasgow.

They will be wearing their native strip throughout, and expect it to be a real conversation-starter.

The pair had been to a previous World Cup together, Brazil in 2014, and they have followed Northern Ireland abroad to Bulgaria, Slovakia, Italy, Azerbaijan, Costa Rica, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Kazakhstan, and more.

Mr Woodend set up the New York Northern Ireland Supporters Club about 10 years ago.

"We’re still there, we still exist – there’s a few of us,” he said.

They are heading to Toronto first, where Canada are set to play Bosnia on Friday – although they are still working on getting tickets.

Ticketing has been “a bit of a fiasco”, though “at a mimimum we’ll be going to the fanzone to watch the game”, he said.

They originally booked a trip to Toronto in anticipation of it being Northern Ireland’s first game, had they made it through to the contest.

“We were thinking positive. That would’ve been us playing Bosnia instead of Canada, but I thought we’d go anyway,” said Mr Woodend.

After that they are aiming to get tickets to Ivory Coast vs Ecuador in Philadelphia, and France vs Senegal in New Jersey.

Mr Woodend already has tickets to see Ghana vs Croatia, then a round of 16 game on July 4 (both in Philadelphia), then a quarter final game in Miami.

The July 4 game will be particularly big, he expects, because the date marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of America.

It is not a cheap hobby: Mr Woodend’s quarter final ticket cost him $1,500, for example.

In the absence of Northern Ireland, both men will give their backing to England – though they imagine France, or perhaps Spain, will actually win.

Mr Logan said: “We loved the atmosphere in 2014, and that’s what’s probably brought us back to another World Cup.

"There’s so many fans from so many different nations just mixing around – you just meet some interesting people.”

At the 2014 World Cup, they met another fan wearing a Northern Ireland shirt, John Sinclair from Carrick, and have remained friends since.

Mr Woodend said: “The same thing will happen this time.

"We fully intend to wear the shirts everywhere we go, as the song goes.

"We’ll meet people through that, people will just come up to us.

"And a lot of people from Ulster went to that part of Canada [around Toronto], so it’s got a big connection to NI – looking forward to that.”

He added that, while the US is not known for its love of football, it is still probably the fifth biggest sport in the country and that in his own home town some 2,000 children are enrolled in a “soccer” programme.

“There’s a lot of positivity about it,” he said.

"The World Cup is always the best thing that happens in the year that it’s on.

"If it was up to me it’d be every two years.

"I remember being a seven-year-old and watching Gerry Armstrong score that goal against Spain – an unforgettable moment, probably my earliest memory.

"It’s sometimes heartbreaking to think how much better the World Cup would be if we were in it.”