FOR a commentator, it would have been a nightmare. “Patel passes to Patel, it bounces off Patel’s boot, but Patel comes in from the wing and shoots and oh, a brilliant save by Patel. Every Patel on the terraces is on his feet.”

The reason was simple: all 124 players in a weekend five-a-side charity football tournament in Leeds, and 300 of their fans, were called Patel.

For the participants, it was an extended family occasion. The Patels may not all know each other intimately, but they are all in some way related.

Mahendra Gulabbhai Patel, 46, Yorkshire-born and a lecturer in pharmacy at Bradford University, organised the family knockout competition to raise money for the British Heart Foundation; diabetes and related heart conditions are particularly common among Britain’s South Asian community.

Mr Patel is president of Leuva Patidar Samaj, a non- political and non-religious Patel organisation that brings together members of the extended family to do good works. The event on Sunday raised around £7,000 for heart disease research.

“My society has 30,000 Patels as members, but there are probably a few thousand more out there,” Mr Patel said. “We are overwhelmingly Hindus from the three cities of Surat, Navsari and Valsad in Gujurat state, but we have a few Muslim members. What distinguishes us is that we are almost all direct immigrants from India rather than through East Africa.”

Back home, the Patels, Mr Patel said, were middle to high-caste farmers in an Indian state the size of England. “Imagine a group of moderately well-off people emigrating from Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield.”

Patel is merely the 24th most common surname in Britain. Nonetheless, two years ago an eleven from Mr Patel’s society played cricket against another Bradford-based Indian side. All 22 players turned out to be Patels.

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