BILLERICAY Town winger Ricky Modeste admits his goalscoring international debut for Grenada was an incredible experience.

The 29-year-old has been in flying form for the Isthmian Premier League club this season.

So much so, it earned him a call-up for Grenada in Saturday’s friendly against Trinidad and Tobago.

The experience saw him arrive late, delayed by a plane strike and include a WhatsApp conversation with the President of the Grenadian FA.

And Modeste said it was not your usual weekend.

“It was a crazy experience,” said Modeste, who lives in Corringham. “My grandad is Grenadian but I couldn’t believe it when the President of their FA sent me a WhatsApp. I was like ‘who’s number is this?’ and we spoke and he asked if I could go over.

“Originally they wanted me to go over the same day as the Leatherhead FA Cup match but I said I needed to be available for that match, an I knew we had a lot of games coming up so I checked with the management and they said it was OK.

“I went over late with two other guys but I had never been to the country before and was in the embassy for six hours. The Prime Minister was there but I didn’t know who anyone was.

“We had a training session last Thursday, the day after I arrived, and it was cool. We were supposed to fly to Trinidad on Friday but the airline the team was using went on strike and we were in airport for more than seven hours not knowing if we were going to get there.”

Modeste departed Grenada at 12noon on the day of the match, six hours ahead of kick-off although it was pushed back to 7.30pm.

Arriving at the ground, Modeste said the coach pulled up outside the tunnel and walked out to a cacophony of noise - saying it was like playing in “a carnival”.

Modeste started the match and made an instant impression - putting the visitors 2-0 up on 72 minutes before Trinidad’s late revival made it 2-2.

And he said he has already asked him to return for matches in the run-up to Grenada’s CONCACAF Gold Cup qualifying campaign.

“I started and thought we played well,” he said. “I got the goal and it was a decent one, to be fair. A guy took the set-piece and I got across my man to half-volley it into the corner.

“The team has a number of friendly games coming up and they normally try and keep it quite localised but they want me to go back to get to know the team ahead of qualifying matches in February.”

Modeste returns to action for Billericay tonight in the Isthmian Premier League as Town bid to make it 24 matches unbeaten.

And, with a hectic run of fixtures coming up, Modeste said the team must prepare in the right way.

“When I first joined I was told we might have a lot of games and that is proving to be the case,” he said. “We are playing more games than other teams are spending training at the moment but we have a good fitness coach and we need to be ready.”