Result! Portsmouth builder spends £3,000 to create life-size table football pitch for the World Cup in his back garden

Patriotic Iain-Paul Hutton, 41, spent over 60 hours building the pitch from scaffold, timber and astro-turf with his friend Mark Beal, 45.

The pitch measures nine metres by four metres, and has six-metre high netting around it to prevent the ball from flying out.

Lewis, 13, and daughter Courtney, 16, helped their dad to decorate the pitch with 32 flags - one for every country taking part in the World Cup.

The dad of two from Portsmouth, is planning to celebrate every England game with a match and held the first to mark England’s historic 6-1 triumph over Panama on Sunday.

Around 80 people turned up for the event, where players held on to horizontal scaffold bars and were only allowed to move as much as the bar allowed to kick the ball.

Mr Hutton said: ‘All together, it cost me just over £3,000 for the whole day.

‘It’s not just the pitch - the flags alone were nearly £80, then I filled up a fridge with beer, there’s the barbecue food.’

On England potentially winning the World Cup, he said: “You’ve got to believe!

‘The human table football was my friend Mark’s idea. I’ve always had a party for the Euros and the World Cup, but he turned around and said why not do this?

‘I almost didn’t do it because of the cost, but I had already arranged for the scaffolders to come.

‘My son Lewis is the reason I did it in the end. He was really keen.’

Mr Hutton added: ‘My wife Stacy thinks I’m a little bit mad, but she does support me in what I do.

‘She helped to decorate the pitch - she’s done so much, I couldn’t have done it without her.

‘It’s just about everyone having fun, seeing everyone’s faces, the smiles, it’s just been unbelievable.

‘It’s lovely for people to be able to turn up, have a bit of fun and support England.

‘I’m not really a massive football fan, but it’s great to celebrate what we do as a small nation in this world.’