A migrant sport.

I never really fully understood sports.

I never watched the Grand Final, or those hideously long test matches.

I didn’t even realise Melbourne was where the Australian Open was played.

I wasn’t in the local basketball team and I’ve never even been to a football match at the MCG.

But for some reason, some deep seated reason, I feel an innate need to like soccer.

Well, I guess it’s not that I “like” soccer so much, I mean I’m still stumped by the notion that one would actively choose to chase a hard leather ball around outdoors in the middle of winter, it’s more that I think I see soccer as the working class migrant sport…

Since I can remember I’ve wanted to be a soccer fan, so much so that I’ve got my chosen Greek League team, Paok, every 4 years I religiously force my dad to watch the entire broadcasting of The World Cup with me, I even spent a decent chunk of my youth holding my place as a member or South Melbourne Soccer club’s HFC Fan Club.

But even given all my efforts, my Deep desires to be a true fan, I’m not exactly sure I actually “like” soccer. Or any sport to be exact.

But I do think I know WHY I feel such a strong connection with a sport that I couldn’t probably careless about.

I come from Greek migrants who came to australia in the 70’s. They came with a dream, a suitcase or two and a poor understanding of Australian language.

They were too poor to play tennis, too ethnic for cricket and I’m pretty sure the shape of the AFL ball, to them, just didn’t make sense.

In Europe, even back when there was usually only one single Tv shared by the whole little Greek village, even back then soccer still managed to find their fields.

So, soon after their ships landed on the old green and gold, many young wog boys and young wog men set search for connection in this foreign land.

They often spoken a broken Greeklish- a pieced together form of English that they’d pick while working their factory jobs or by attempting to serve customers at their fruit shops, so their language skills were not exactly opening doors for them, socially speaking.

And they didn’t exactly have treasure troves of money spare to spend on community building activities.

But, they did have the bodies of fit farm workers and the competitiveness and the team focused loyalty of battling tribes men.

So tennis was out, cricket was out, horses seemed so much more overpriced than the village donkeys they had been used to- so equestrian was out, basketball didn’t seem to figure much into consideration and like I said, the Aussie rules footballs shape made them scratch their heads in befuddlement.

Soccer was familiar, energetic and the cost to play only slightly dearer than the ball it’s self.

It was accessible and it gave them opportunities to branch out their social circle beyond the extended family.

I think the essence of this nostalgia, this sense of linking to my parents youth. My father passing the ball between his Brunswick team mates, my mothers Sunday match afternoons perched on the side lines watching. My uncle’s rare opportunity to share a common ground with him son and our shared ritualistic easter Sunday family match, in the a cobble stone Brunswick lane way behind my grandmothers house.

So, while it is true- I just don’t understand sport, I do “like” soccer, and all it represents for me.