Jeffles wrote:Anyone remember russ13?
I sure do - still awaiting his return for another bout. Now that Jeffles has got me into this thread, I thought I'd better contribute something, so this recent heart-warming Age article (even though its a bit off-topic) shows how Australian Football will solve world peace. Once thats done, they'll start on world hunger -
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/t ... 81707.html
Teamwork goes for goal: peace
The Age, December 27, 2007
DREAMS don't come bigger than those in the Oziel family. Only three years after first playing Australian football, 11-year-old Haim Oziel wants to be the Sydney Swans' first Jewish player. It's not an unrealistic aim: in his first game for the Maroubra Saints, Haim kicked four goals and was quickly playing representative footy for the Sydney City region and in a state schools competition.
His mother, Tanya, has an even bolder goal. As executive director of the Israeli Peres Centre for Peace's Australian chapter, she is working towards peace in the Middle East. And inspired by her son's passion, she believes Australia's homegrown football code can help. Ms Oziel and the Australian Football League have joined forces to bring a team of young Israelis and Palestinians to Victoria next year to play in the AFL's International Cup.
The potential players have never seen the pointy red leather of an Australian rules football, let alone tried to bounce, kick or mark it. They have never watched a game and don't know the rules. And there are myriad security issues to overcome. Just bringing the players together for training involves a long process to obtain permits for Palestinians to enter Israel, before even tackling the difficulties of overseas travel.
But Ms Oziel, of Vaucluse, believes fielding a joint team will send a message of hope and peace to Muslim and Jewish communities in the Middle East and Australia. "It's the most rewarding thing I have done in years and perhaps forever," she says. "We are actually affecting what's going on here between Muslims and Jews; we are bringing two communities together. "You strip away religion, beliefs, culture - at the end of the day we all want the same thing … it will raise awareness that despite what we see on the news, that Palestinians and Israelis at a grassroots level can really get on."
The Peace Team project began this year when a Melbourne businessman, James Demetriou - brother of the AFL chief executive, Andrew Demetriou - learnt about the work of the Peres Centre for Peace during a trade mission to Israel. Ms Oziel sought him out when he returned. At that stage, she was thinking of running Australian football camps in Israel. Demetriou - who also manages the Sports Without Borders program for refugee children in Victoria - supported her and referred her to the AFL's multicultural project co-ordinator, Nick Hatzoglou. They met in June, and Hatzoglou suggested fielding a Peace Team in the International Cup next August.
"Everyone said, 'It's too big, it's too difficult, you won't get the money,' " Ms Oziel, who put a formal proposal to the AFL and the Peres Centre in Israel, said. But when the billionaire Richard Pratt kick-started the fund-raising with $60,000 from the Pratt Foundation this month, the project won the official go-ahead. A further $240,000 is needed to bring the team to Australia. ... Information sessions will be held within weeks to encourage graduates of the schools program to play in the Peace Team. A handful of expat Australians with knowledge of AFL have volunteered to coach, and the AFL will send over equipment, coaching manuals and DVDs of the game.
Waleed Aly, a Melbourne lawyer, university lecturer and Muslim community leader, believes no other sport unifies like Australian football. "Australian rules football is the closest thing this country has ever had to the Declaration of Independence," Mr Aly says. "The whole premise of it was that it's our game … to play it is almost automatically to be one of us, in a way that can't be said of other sports."
