There I was getting my hopes up at the chance of watching the 1930 World Cup in Tenerife. Have I finally flipped, or is it the latest bizarre ruling from FIFA, well neither really, today was the first day of filming in La Laguna of Montevideo, a movie about the first ever World Cup that took place in the Uruguay capital all those years ago.

It’s a Serbian production based on the true story of the surprise packet of the tournament, Yugoslavia, they only went to make up the numbers but their mainly Serbian team finished third. This is the second movie now going into production, the first showed the players growing up and sharing their love of football in their home town of Belgrade. The new movie takes the story on to their World Cup exploits and will be followed by a TV series, apparently this has become a huge hit with the Serbian viewers.

La Laguna is doubling up as 1930’s Montevideo but I was hoping the action scenes would be filmed at CD Tenerife’s Heliodoro Stadium in Santa Cruz. Sadly it is not considered big enough to depict the games, the final when Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 was watched by 93,000 fans. Seems a shame as the Heliodoro is quite an old stadium and with some technical wizardry I’m sure they could add on a few tiers to the stands. CD Tenerife even had a Serbian forward a few years ago, Vejiko Paunavic, but he is now playing in the United States.

It looked like the film team were digging in for a long shoot up by Calle San Agustin, actors were getting into 1930’s clothes in the caravans provided, a large catering unit was in place to feed the crew and stars, and a large dining area had been set up in the shade. The security guard hovering around wasn’t too keen on my camera but it is in a very public area so ya boo to him. So much for my trip back in time to a golden age of football, I will just have to re-create the 1930 games with my Subbuteo players.