Did you hear the one about the disused Royal Navy fort, a territorial dispute, an unrecognised micro nation off the Suffolk coast and a former West Ham footballer? It’s a bizarre story set just seven nautical miles off the coast of Britain and surrounds the former World War 2 armed tower (known more commonly as Maunsells Forts) called Roughs Tower which since the late 1960’s has been in the possession of a family who renamed it Sealand and have tried to establish their own micro nation. Sealand has its own currency, passports and even its own national football team.
Roughs Tower, along with several others, was constructed during World War II and towed out to sea to protect British and Allied shipping lanes, dockyards as well as the fleet sailing in the area too, from German attack. At any one time up to 150 naval personnel were stationed on the tower, yet after the war their numbers were gradually reduced until by the mid 1950’s the tower became unmanned. The tower remained in this state until 1965 when members of the Wonderful Radio London pirate station occupied it but they were forcibly removed in 1967 by a competitor Major Paddy Bates. Bates’ intention was to broadcast his own radio station, Radio Essex, from the platform. Yet he decided to go several steps further and declared the tower an independent nation and christened it the Principality of Sealand.
To reinforce the seriousness of his claim, a year later when British workers entered what he decreed were Sealand’s territorial waters to service a nearby buoy, Bates’ son Michael opened fire on their vessel. Bates Jr was still a British subject and so was summoned to appear in court on firearms charges and somewhat astonishingly won a victory in his quest for Sealand’s independence. The presiding judge decreed that as Sealand was beyond British territorial waters (three nautical miles) the case could not proceed and was dropped. By 1975 Paddy had written a national anthem as well as establishing a state flag, currency and passport.
In 1978 an attempted coup took place at Sealand. Whilst Paddy and his wife were in England, Alexander Achenbach (the self proclaimed Prime Minister of Sealand) with the help of German and Dutch mercenaries took Michael hostage and occupied the fort. In a scene not amiss from either a James Bond movie or a Chris Morris sketch they stormed the platform using jet skis, helicopters and speedboats. Michael managed to briefly slip away from his captors to find weapons that had been hidden on the platform and capture both Achenbach and the mercenaries. As Achenbach was a Sealand passport holder he was charged with treason and told that unless he paid £23,000 he would not be released. The Dutch and German governments petitioned the UK government to intervene; they refused however citing the 1968 court case with Michael. Eventually Germany sent a representative from their embassy in London to negotiate and after a few weeks Achenbach was released. Paddy claimed that the ambassador’s visit was an act of recognition by Germany towards Sealand.
Sealand’s history since the 1970’s has been potted. It has been estimated that over 150,000 Sealand passports have been issued, it also survived a fire in 2006 and an attempted purchase by Pirate Bay following a crackdown of copyright infringement rules by its native Sweden. In 2010 Sealand was placed up for sale with an asking price of £600m; however it’s most significant developments were more tragic and recent. In 2012 Paddy died having suffered with Alzheimer’s disease for a long time and in March 2016 his wife Joan died in a nursing home in Essex. Sealand’s current status is that Michael resides in Essex whilst a skeleton staff looks after Sealand on an ongoing basis.
Sealand does have a sporting culture too and with it a footballing one. The Sealand National Football Association was founded in 2003 and a year later they played their first match against Aland, a series of islands under Finnish control but with a degree of autonomy, where they drew 2-2. Due to a lack of players the team took a hiatus until 2009, where under the leadership of author Neil Forsyth, the reformed Sealand team began playing matches again.
In 2012 Sealand played the Chagos Islands at a ground in Surrey, where despite fielding Royale Family actor Ralf Little and former Bolton Wanderers player Simon Charlton, the result was a 3-1 loss. Their fortunes took a turn for the better in 2013 when they competed in the Isle of Man at the Tynwald Hill International Football Tournament under the stewardship of former West Ham legend Julian Dicks. After taking a couple of heavy losses early in the tournament (including an 8-0 reverse to eventual winners Occitania) Sealand picked up a 2-1 win over Alderney, a team over whom they’d had their first ever win a few months earlier. As they went from strength to strength Sealand even managed to go on a European tour as they thumped Raetia 6-1 and Seborga 3-2, extending Sealand’s unbeaten run to six games.
Whilst Fifa membership is a virtual uncertainty, there is no doubt that Sealand’s players feel an enormous sense of pride to represent their side which continues to be a constitutional quirk of the United Kingdom. The future of both the micro nation and its football team will be of enormous interest to those not only in the UK but also a large tower situated in the middle of the unforgiving North Sea
Emancipation For Goalposts 