What is a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid?
I was six years old when some people turned up at school unannounced and asked if anyone wanted to play soccer — or, as SBS TV would later teach us to call it, “the real football.”
I did not know what soccer was. My family was not sporty. I had never seen a football. But it sounded good to me, so I joined up with my friend Robert.
That was the start of the obsession.
Robert and I walked to training together each week. We practised after school, kicking footballs through a bicycle rim. We travelled together on match day. We loved it, and we were good. In the first three years, we won two grand finals.
Then, in the fourth year, I was tapped on the shoulder and asked to play in the club’s First Division team. I went home shocked. I told Mum and Dad, then immediately burst into tears. They were proud of me. I was devastated. I did not want to leave Robert’s team.
That is one of the things I remember most clearly. At that age, football was not only about football. It was about friendship. It was about walking together, training together, winning together, belonging together. Promotion felt like success to the adults. To me, it felt like being separated from my friend.
Somewhere around that time, I began to realise that soccer was bigger than our local fields. I remember going to the cinema one night to watch a film about the FA Cup. That was the first time I understood there were professional football teams. There were great stadiums, famous clubs, crowds, songs, histories. The game I had stumbled into at school was part of something much larger.
In Australia, soccer had always occupied a strange place. It was one of the biggest participation sports in the country, but it often ran last in public affection. We had several football codes, each convinced it was the real one. Soccer was often treated as an immigrant game, and sometimes dismissed with crude insults. Many clubs were founded around ethnic communities, which gave the game richness and colour, but also made it easy for outsiders to treat it as marginal.
That is why SBS calling soccer “the real football” struck such a chord. It was cheeky, of course. But it was also a small act of confidence. The game was stepping out of the margins.
For me, the global game became personal through colour.
At some point, I read in our club newsletter that we had the same colours as the English club Aston Villa: claret shirt, sky-blue sleeves, white shorts. That was all I needed. I became an Aston Villa supporter.
It is strange what makes a child choose a team. I did not study the history. I did not compare league tables. I did not know Birmingham. I did not know Villa Park. I just knew they wore our colours.
Only later did I discover that West Ham and Burnley also wore claret and blue. By then it was too late. Loyalty had done its work.
This week Villa were in the news after reaching their first European final in forty-four years. That is a long time in football. It is also a long time in a human life. Long enough for a childhood obsession to become an adult loyalty.
On 20 May, they play Freiburg in the final in Istanbul. I am looking forward to it. And if they win, they are off to the Champions League in 2027.
I played competitive football for more than fifty years, with the odd break for study or work. I eventually stopped when life became too busy and I could not attend training anymore. But I did not really leave football.
Some things we begin as children stay with us. They change shape, but they do not disappear.
A ball. A friend. A colour. A club.
The Afterword 
Leave a comment