Newly-formed Understeer United took on Welsh team Bancffosfelen in honor of the late Dai Roberts
Photography by Nightingale Rally Media, Adam Pigott / Spacesuit Media & Jakob Ebrey / Motorsport UK
Words by Luke Barry
Out of context it was an odd sporting match-up.
Rally drivers are used to competing against each other rather than with, and have a penchant for the handbrake over the penalty spot. As for local Welsh team Bancffosfelen FC… well, not many of them would have imagined trying to score a goal past a European Rally champion before.
But the mission was obvious. Raising money for The Jaffa Fund that he’d put so much into, his two passions – rallying and soccer – had come together as one. Somewhere upstairs, a great man was gleaming with pride.
It’s all Dai Roberts would have wanted.
The affable 39-year-old lost his life in an accident at May’s Jim Clark Rally, but will never be lost from the minds of those who knew him. Very quickly it became apparent that a charity soccer match would be a brilliant way of keeping his legacy alive.
“Dai and I would talk about football and stuff all the time,” Callum Black, a competitor in the British Rally Championship, tells DirtFish. “Both of us enjoyed playing football when we weren’t rallying, so we’d always catch up and have a chat about football, have a chat about his son playing football and stuff like that.
“Five or six years ago now, Dai organized a five or six-a-side football tournament for the Jaffa Fund in Newtown [Wales], and there was a selection of local lads and then rally lads – people from all over.
“I’d been onto Dai saying we need to do that again, and we thought it would be cool to maybe have drivers versus co-drivers or something like that. As soon as he passed away, I knew in my head, like, this has to happen in memory of him.”
It wasn’t hard to convince others of the same. Callum approached Craig Parry (the new custodian of The Jaffa Fund, named after Dai’s late brother Gareth, in Dai’s passing) with the idea to raise money for the charity – absolutely. Craig then approached Bancffosfelen junior coach Jason Hughes for buy-in from the club – sorted.
The ball was literally rolling – all that was needed now was a team. And a name.
“Understeer United,” Callum smiles. “Jac [Dai’s 13-year-old son] came up with that.”
Callum was instrumental in ensuring everyone remembered Dai on the pitch
Players included names far more ordinary on a British championship entry list than a team sheet. Up against them was an array of players and coaches who’d played with Dai for Bancffosfelen – and it’s fair to say they weren’t expecting much of a game.
“I was very, very surprised by the standard,” Hughes tells DirtFish. “Basically we thought in the changing rooms ‘ah it will be alright now, we’re only up against rally boys – they probably don’t play football.’ But some of them had technical ability which I was a bit shocked by.
“The fitness levels were obviously going to be decent because to whip a rally car round all these stages you’ve got to have a certain level of fitness I would have thought because you’re fighting that car around every corner. But yeah their football ability shocked a lot of us.
“There were a few in there that maybe should have played football before they started rallying!”
The day was about so much more than the result, but that didn’t stop the competitive juices flowing. What else would you expect from a bunch of rally drivers, co-drivers and soccer players?
Black grins: “There were a few big challenges, and a bit of needle behind some challenges – it was good. Good fun. Like we weren’t pulling out…”
Hughes concurs: “We wanted to win. In the changing rooms we said we can’t let them beat us because Dai wouldn’t want that. If Dai was in the changing room, we had to be competitive. So there was a lot of emotion but we were still treating it like a game of football. But what a great day, what a great cause. It was just a lovely experience.”
Understeer United ended up the winners via a 5-4 scoreline, and fittingly Jac Roberts put in a man of the match performance with two goals.
“I’ve coached since he was five so I’m taking credit for that!” Hughes laughs. “He’s a great player mind – he’s really, really good. Dai obviously pushed him quite a bit. If Dai was going to get his son to do something, it wasn’t going to be half-arsed. He was all in on everything. He was a good coach. Jac’s turned out to be a pretty damn good player. He scored two goals on the day, that shows his class.”
The match also managed to raise £2,500 for The Jaffa Fund with plans in place to make it an annual affair.
“The plan is to try and do it at a different venue next year,” Black says. “We’re working on a plan to try and use a bigger pitch and allow our opposition to have an away day and then we’ll maybe do like a home and away [in alternating years].”
The persisting pain of losing someone like Dai will always remain, but days like this help remember him in the right way: for who he was and what he loved.
“Oh, he would have been so happy,” smiles Black. “That was like his two worlds coming into one. Seeing his son play, I think that would have been very special for him too. He’s very proud of him, wasn’t he? And I think he’d have been proud to have all his mates in one place, you know it was a very special day.
Dai (left) was a massive fan of both rallying and soccer
“A lot of really generous people, a lot of people that appreciated Dai putting time in and that reciprocated them into this day, really. And you can see everyone moving forward wants to do the same again. There was a lot of emotion involved, especially after the game.
“Louise, Dai’s wife, was there and she presented both teams with a medal and then us with a trophy for winning, which was quite nice. And then obviously the team presented their new shirt which they’ve changed from red to blue in honor of him, which was emotional.
“And Dai’s got a bench there now, pitch-side. After the game, James Aldridge and I walked over before we were leaving, looked at his bench and I think that’s when I felt most emotional. Yeah. When it all stopped and you could hear all the kids playing in the background and the day had finished and you just think… yeah, nice.
“It’s just not right he’s not with us anymore, it’s tragic to say the least, but at least some good things are happening out of it.”
“I could say a million things about Dai,” adds Hughes. “He had loads of energy. He was an organizer – and hated losing, just like in a rally car. The life of the party and a friend to everybody, he would do anything for everybody. He was just all in. Dai was all-in. That’s all he was. Exactly the same in a rally car to what he was on the pitch. Flat out all the time.
“It’s a tragic event, but I know what he’s saying up there: get on with it. Don’t worry about what’s happened, just get on with your life. That’s what sort of guy he was.”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Callum Black, Dai Roberts, soccer, The Jaffa Fund, Understeer United
Publish Date October 8, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-08-at-09.00.57.png October 8, 2025
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