It was one battle Sergeant Martin Shackleton didn't mind losing.

Resplendent in their Bradford City shirts, the British soldiers celebrated the toppling of Saddam Hussain's regime with a 3-1 defeat by their colleagues from the Kuwaiti army.

And for Bantams fan Sgt Shackleton there was no better way to mark the end of months of hard graft in the Gulf.

Last month, dad-of-one Sgt Shackleton, 31, sent a letter to the Valley Parade club appealing for a set of claret and amber shirts so they could enjoy a game of football once the conflict ended.

So when Saddam's statue was famously toppled by celebrating Iraqis in the heart of Baghdad, Sgt Shackleton had no hesitation in deciding how they should celebrate.

"Like a scene from Escape to Victory, the morale of the troops was raising higher and higher," he said in a letter to the Telegraph & Argus.

"We ran out on to the pitch proud to be representing our country and honoured to be wearing the Bantams strip."

Sgt Shackleton, an electrical mechanical engineer with the 3rd Battalion Reme, said the match at the Kuwait National Guard Bas, had been the highlight of his long stay in the Gulf.

"For 90 minutes we were back home with our families, playing football with our friends, or watching Saturday's game with our children," he said. "For 90 minutes, life was good."

Wendy Kestin, customer liaison manager at Bradford City who arranged for the shirts to be sent out, said she was delighted to see the pictures.

"It is so fantastic to see all the boys out their in our kits," she said. "We know that something like this can give them so much pleasure and that's what it's all about."

Sgt Shackleton's mum Christine, of Moorside Road, Eccleshill, said it would have been a special moment for her son to see all his Army colleagues decked out in the claret and amber.

"He would be dead proud to be wearing his City kit out there," she said. "He is quite a big fan."

And Mrs Shackleton said she was relieved the war was over and hoped to see her son again soon.

"His wife has said she is hoping he will be back in Germany possibly at the end of May or the beginning of June, and that he should be able to see us then. Obviously, that will be a fantastic moment."