HOW

Not everyone is a football fan, but very rarely do you encounter somebody who is so repulsed by the beautiful game that they would describe it as "abhorrent." But that's how Rick Stanton used to feel.

At school in the 1960s and 70s, he says he could swim and run, but any time a ball came towards him, he recalls a sense of "complete panic."

And there can be no misunderstanding his stance on the matter. "I just didn't get it at all. Not interested," he told CNN, as he remembered lunchtimes sitting well away from the action "with the uncool kids who didn't kick balls around."

He jokes that he's only heard of English Premier League football teams because they're named after British cities, and he'll find himself consoling friends whose teams have lost a game with a dispassionate: "Never mind, there'll be another match next week."

The way he describes himself, totally lacking in eye-hand coordination, it doesn't sound like anybody would have ever wanted him on their team, until one day, many decades later, Stanton finally got the call. This was a football team that didn't just want him, they needed him.

When the Wild Boars youth team was missing in Thailand, it was a desperate matter of life and death, and one that the world followed with bated breath.

Up until the summer of 2018, not many people had heard of Stanton. But since leaving high school in the 1980s, he'd quietly established himself as the pre-eminent expert in his field: cave diving. It's a niche activity that suits his analytical mind and sense of adventure.

"It's a physical activity," Stanton told CNN. "But a thinking activity with logistics and planning."

But the main thing was the opportunity to explore; the amateur person -- with no real monetary means -- could explore somewhere that no one else has been before.

Thai boys trapped in cave meet divers at event recounting ordeal

"The whole surface of the world has been photographed, but if you're the first one there in a cave, you have no idea what's around the next corner," he added.

Stanton's passion is more like an obsession, and he has dedicated his life to it. He never married, and his house in England, cluttered with home-made diving equipment, once led a Sunday Telegraph journalist to describe him as "not the most domesticated of men."

Whilst he wouldn't describe cave diving as a competitive activity, he concedes that "it is a very competitive environment, people always want to be the first ones there."

It's a pursuit that has claimed the lives of many, some of whom who were known to Stanton, and he's often recovered their bodies. But he doesn't consider diving to be inherently risky.

"Just because something seems dangerous doesn't mean that you have to do it in a dangerous manner," he said. "Driving [a car] could be dangerous if you're a dangerous driver."

And he's in no way a thrill seeker. "If you've got adrenaline in a cave, you're doing it wrong," he added.

He has dived all over the world, often going further and deeper than any before him. And he's done it his own way, eschewing the flashy high-tech gadgets used by some of his rivals.

His signature piece of equipment -- a flotation device -- is actually a repurposed inner tube from a motorcycle tire. If that gives the impression of a beginner, he is anything but.