Great Britain's 1st Battalion Grenadier Guard fought on American soil -- er, artificial turf -- Monday evening at Lehi High School against Utah National Guardsmen in a soccer match.

The British won, 7-0.

The game was put together by two friends, Master Sergeant Monty Smith of Eagle Mountain, and Warrant Officer II Sean Bates from Yorkshire, Leeds, Great Britain. The two met when they were stationed together in Kuwait in 2006.

The United Kingdom sent Bates, also known to Great Britain soccer fans as the "Basher," to Kuwait to train people in fratricide or friendly fire.

"Because they use different vehicles than everybody else, they were being shot by friendly forces," said Smith. "So it was decided that the British would teach a fratricide class for all of the coalition forces. They would teach anybody going to Afghanistan. They'd stop in Kuwait, get this class, get my class and then move out."

Smith's own class was on explosive hazards awareness training. He was also in charge of the total education program and its instructors, including, for three months, Bates.

"He worked with me, although he outranked me, he worked with me," Smith said.

After Bates returned home, they kept in touch with one another through e-mail correspondence.

"We established a good friendship over there," Smith said. "Because he was on my team and he is a great guy. We have the same personalities and we just clicked."

"He cooks a good steak," said Bates with a grin. "We had a lot of barbecues over there. And we told lots of stories about British military, U.S. military. You know, just having a chit chat. We got along well."

Last October, Bates, who also coaches the British Grenadier Guard soccer team, asked Smith if his Utah Guard had a soccer team.

" 'I don't know,' I said," Smith said, smiling. " 'We'll, find out.' "

As far as Smith knew, the Utah Guard did not have a soccer team.

"I sent out an e-mail, you know, and I got 41 people responded to this e-mail to either officiate, or to be a coach, or to be a line judge," he said. "It was an overwhelming response. We had a meeting the next day, and one of the gentlemen said, 'I'll do it, because you know I don't know anything about soccer.' "

With two volunteers to become coaches, the rest of the volunteers, both Air and Army National Guardsmen, became the Utah Guard team.

"Because my friend wanted to play soccer and his unit is like the most prestigious unit that there is," Smith said. "I mean you talk about the Queen's Guard, Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard, everyone knows about it ... how could I say no?"

The British donated more than 11,000 pounds, about 20,000 U.S. dollars, so the Grenadier Guards could fly to Utah and play a friendly game of soccer with the Utah National Guard.

Bates is a 20-year veteran as a player for the Grenadier Guard soccer team and has been their coach for two years. Planning the 2009 competitive season at home proved difficult because of deployments, so Bates looked at other options, choosing games to promote goodwill.

"The reason why we come over here is because we go to Afghanistan in October and we couldn't fulfill the whole season, so I decided we would come over here to play some friendly games with these guys overseas," Bates said. "I mean these guys just got back from Kenya about two weeks ago."

The team represents an elite battalion of about 650 infantry. Smith said his British visitors also hope to see a Real Salt Lake soccer game while they are here. In addition, the American guests are making presentations on their battalion, and its ceremony, duties and history to a few schools in the area.

Perhaps they will also educate Americans a little bit more about the game of soccer, known as football in the United Kingdom.

"I'm being nice. I'm in Rome at the moment, so I'm doing what the Romans do," Bates said. "I'll call it soccer while I'm here, and when I get back to the U.K., I'll call it football."

The two teams will meet again at Utah Valley University for a second game tonight at 6. Admission is free and the event is open to the public.