It’s common behaviour of people within the football community to swear allegiance to one club and no one else, and it’s common to see on forums where one claims to support a handful of teams in various leagues and another to take a look back on it and question whether he is a complete nuffy.

Some even love to share around the quote:

You can change your wife, your politics, your religion. But never, never can you change your favourite football team.”

Eric Cantona

Even though I come from a Polish family in the south-eastern suburbs, there wasn’t much emphasis on how great the world game is besides watching the 2002 World Cup and the international competitions that followed after. It was only out of curiosity I found my grandfather occasionally watching highlights or replays of a mixture of English Premiere League games where he introduced me to Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell during their Leeds United period a year or two prior to this. Unfortunately my memory of the first time I was introduced to football is absent and don’t remember the time I watched the first competitive game, nor do I recall the first goal that I was mesmerised from.

Hell, I do know for a fact that I watched the 2002 World Cup final between Brazil and Germany but I don’t remember the key moments that have unfolded or how the 2 goals were scored by Brazil, but I do remember being perplexed by Ronaldo’s (The O.G.) shocking haircut the whole game.

(only to be later revealed as a humorous stunt to raise morale for his teammates and take the mind off from his injury)

Never have I questioned while growing up, about the state of Australia’s football or even if they have a league of their own and never knew the NSL existed, because my family never invested their time into this. Other than the fact of being involved with Polonia (now Western Eagles) in the 70’s and 80’s during their glory days of the Victorian Premier League.

I’ve had my interests in England of how Leeds United and Arsenal were playing during the 2000’s but there was uncertainty during the birth of the A-League and how there were only 8 teams involved at the time. My first impressions were it was a complete gimmick of a competition with no promotion/relegation system and the blatant corporate presentation each club showed themselves as. It just felt artificial.

The whole landscape of my perception of the league started to change during the construction of the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium (AAMI Park) and the expansion clubs propping up. I sat down and kept an open mind as friends and acquaintances could not stop talking about it, and the upset result of Heart defeating Victory 2-1 in late 2010 made me feel wanting to watch more and start supporting Heart from then on.

Fast Forward to the City Football Group takeover, the re-branding to Melbourne City and up to the 2017/2018 season, and a piece of my interest had died by now. All I saw was a corporate body playing with a new toy and expecting me to accept the unattractive sky blue and white colour scheme and their business model. Those that I knew quite well during the Yarraside days, and familiar faces from the leadership core disappeared into the abyss and never seen again. After the first season attending City games, Active Support had shifted to a new era and dwindling to some degree. I became disinterested from attending and remained observing their games on Foxtel for the next 2 years.

Aside from the A-League, I have attended South Melbourne’s NPL games during their championship winning season in 2016 for work experience in assisting match day operations as part of my university degree. I returned in 2019 to volunteer in match day photography, around the time I have recently picked it up as a hobby.

After inheriting a Nikon D90 from the passing of my grandfather in 2012, it was only until late 2018 I then began to use the camera to its full potential and ventured into alternative avenues where no one in the NPL bothered to go before, and explore all the venues with the camera and documenting them. The 2019 season was the birth of the ‘Behind the Lens’ series and interacted with all kinds of characters from various communities in each club during South Melbourne’s journey.

What is noteworthy is that the staff of South Melbourne knew my familiar face and showed gratitude in my work ethics and my digital curation of the club and their opponents. There is a strong bond existing and a more ‘family’ environment with my inclusion into the working staff of the club. A different footballing experience and dynamic while with them during the National Premier League season compared to Melbourne City in the A-League.

The 2019/2020 season marked a return to visit City games in the Active sector again with the newly formed City Terrace. My old self was more on the extreme end of being introverted and kept to myself for the majority of times and took the opportunity to turn my own character around and become more involved in the networking side of things.

There were of course new faces that I have never seen before and a few that I knew of. I decided to continue what was left behind by talented fan-photographers of the Heart era and their History of Melbourne Heart Photo Blog, and create my own contribution to the terrace with the same context, with a bit of a twist with my own niche in strictly taking photos on 35mm film. Something new and fresh, and so far it has been an extremely rewarding and memorable experience.

So here I am taking initiative to create this blogging platform for the sake of having fun with it and not really making long term plans with it as of yet. But right now I see myself as a more football contributor through the two different worlds of South Melbourne and Melbourne City. A love for both clubs on different levels but that feeling of being a fanatic, in the form of neo-tribalist behaviour we see today, is gone once Melbourne Heart left the scene.

However, there is an existence of a strong relationship for both, but Melbourne City is more of a love-hate relationship whilst the City Terrace/Active Supporters section is the key factor why I enjoy my time being there at AAMI Park.