Players from the 2013 Australia Day event at the Guangzhou cricket ground. Picture, World Footy News.
World Footy News continues its series on footy in Asia. Below’s excerpt is from 3 February 2013.
As mentioned in our opening piece on the future of Australian football in Asia, getting more locals involved is something that has largely escaped the game when compared with South Africa, Europe and the South Pacific. Darrell Egan is one expat Australian who has found no such difficulty getting local Chinese involved in the sport and he has many thoughts on how to take footy forward – in fact it was Darrell’s enthusiasm for change that prompted this series of articles.
First up we thought we should learn a little more about Darrell’s background.
“I come from east of Melbourne and played football with the Heathmont Football club. From my teenage years throughput the 80’s age of dealing with issues of bullying, racial issues friends of mine would cop and also my self being associated with them which did not effect my multiracial racial friendships. On a trip to Cloncurry in Queensland which my father took me at the age of sixteen I saw racism which nearly saw me in a blue with a redneck. These experiences taught me that comfortable “in crowds” can form with an exclusive and victimizing attitude and good mentoring for young people is important in society as these attitudes are generational.
“Later in life I went on to be involved in a leadership program with Indigenous youth seeing them play a completely traditional game of Marngrook at the Nicky Winmar Cup in 2002. This is the team we formed (see ABC article here). This was a cultural and career revelation which saw more interest from me in football and education”.
In 2010 Darrell went to live in Macau with his Chinese-Macau wife Fatima, who he’d met in Australia. So how did that lead to teaching football to the locals?
“Fatima went back to teaching which is her qualification. We both share the values of good mentoring for young people. I got involved in English programs with some schools my wife had connection with in English and introduced Footy as a skills program with middle schools. This experience taught me what young people and their parents in Macau expect from sport and place in their child’s activity priority and it is the same as what I am experiencing in China is that formal career oriented education is of top priority. Matching education and career with Footy for locals became my passion. I enjoyed teaching these young people. However Macau lacked space and along with receiving lack of engagement from the expat footy community there it lost legs.
“Another factor was that junior and middle school students attention was later turned and focused on study by their parents and footy was not a priority in this. In late 2011 my attention then was turned to Dongguan from friend Charlie whose father owned the Australia shop franchises in Macau and Hong Kong. Charlie grew up in Sydney and played some Rugby there was of great support along with a Macau neighbor of mine Francisco who has been a great source of advice and support.
“I am implementing an English speaking program and working to get engagement from the Guangzhou Scorpions whom are an expat team but have made great strides in getting some locals involved”.
The complete article
To read the rest of the article on World Footy News, click here.
