Sounder-down-Under is a look at the beautiful game from the other side of the world, written by Seattle ex-pat Drew Dickson.
Sounder-down-Under is a look at the beautiful game from the other side of the world, written by Seattle ex-pat Drew Dickson.
Football is as much a force for bringing people together as much as it has the ability to drive a wedge between two people.
Many people are quick to point to the seedy side of the beautiful game that has seen fights erupt and wars begin. Tensions boiled over in the land of my grandparents in the 1990s as Yugoslavia fell apart, most famously before the war began during a league match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade.
El Salvador and Honduras entered into a conflict known as the Football War that lasted for 100 hours after economic tensions reached a boiling point during a World Cup Qualifying match between the two nations in 1969.
With all these events swirling around, over the past few months I have had the ability to witness the power of football as it manifested itself within two of my close friends. As Europe begins to shift its focus to sifting out the remaining third place teams to round out the EURO 2016 finalists to a total of twenty-four, I saw the qualification of one nation bring two of my friends closer than before.
My friendship group in Australia is made up primarily of other ex-pats.
Being an ex-pats means that we have a strange bond of being away from home and though we are not from the same areas, the holidays without families and birthdays away from our comforts means we understand how bittersweet some days can be.
Two of my friends happen to have come to Australia from the same country and despite having grown up fifty miles from each other, they never met, and would not have sought each other out had they met back home, and would not have bothered to talk to each other had they met casually.
They are from the now peaceful but still divided country of Northern Ireland.
One friend is Catholic, took the option to get an Irish passport (as per the agreement with the Republic of Ireland), is the first to celebrate St. Patricks Day, and would do anything to see Scottish side Celtic FC win over their Glasgow neighbours Rangers. The other is Protestant, maintains that he is British as reflected in his passport, knows when the Orange Marching Season starts, and owns the full Rangers kit.
When I met the pair while we were playing for the same club in Australia I was impressed at how two men from a country that anyone of us would have said was a reason they would not be friends were laughing and joking with each other.
The Catholic even made a point of teasing the Protestant when Marching Season was about to begin. The American part of me that worries people will get offended, got scared that feelings would be hurt and all of a sudden got ready to defend anyone who was hurt, but they laughed.
On the field I watched as both men came to each other’s defense after bad tackles, forgetting for a moment what centuries of strife had taught them. They celebrated each other’s goals, languished in shared team defeats, and sang our club song (it is an Australian thing, we are all still trying to figure it out) when we advanced up the ladder.
Over the years we have been here, we celebrated each other’s birthdays, spent Christmas together, and we joked that the two only saw eye to eye on one thing, North London side Tottenham Hotspur.
This past year the pair found another thing they loved and were both equally excited about. Their country became united in its run to EURO 2016.
As each match ended, the group chat with our other friends became more and more excited. The Englishman in our group watched as his nation cruised easily to the top, while our friend from the Republic of Ireland has to wait out the draw and two match decider for the 3rd place playoffs. But despite a few hiccups, Northern Ireland topped their group and would not be unseated from their pedestal. It was amazing achievement for a county that emerged from Pot 5 in the draw.
I will not attempt to trivialize the Troubles by giving a one paragraph explanation of its history. I don’t think something that complicated can be explained away in a few sentences. I will also point out that I am neither Catholic, nor Protestant, and truly unsure if my family has any Irish blood in our veins. What I have gleaned from my friends and having worked in Europe in my 20s, is that the deeply rooted feelings will remain within the current generation, but are slowly starting to dissipate. This is why I have enjoyed watching my friends’ excitement this past year.
My two friends united together under the banner of their country, a land that even to this day has its fair share of ethnic/sectarian tension and open wounds from centuries of fighting.
At home, the two men would not have gone to the same bars or played on the same football teams.
Football and the greatest national stage in Europe however united them in their excitement when Northern Ireland qualified for its first major tournament since World Cup 1986, and their first EURO Cup Finals in the National Team’s history.
Though I do not have a team in the competition I want to see win more than any other, seeing football start to break down a barrier that has divided Northern Ireland for so long not only gives me hope for the country itself, but also people who are caught up in conflicts within their own countries across the world.
Football might not be the cure, but it sure can push the issue closer to resolutions. It might be a naive thought, but I like to think the world is more good than bad.
