World Footy News

Among the sides running out onto Whitten Oval in this year's Harmony Cup will be Team Israel, who will be hoping to regain the title they won at 2004's inaugural Multicultural Cup.

Although the Australian Jewish community is not often associated with producing star players, it has provided us with such high profile off-field personalities as the late Carlton president Dick Pratt, Melbourne FC's merger saviour Joseph Gutnick, current Bulldogs chief David Smorgon and colourful 80s-era Sydney Swans owner Dr Geoffrey Edelsten.

Fans of international footy will be familiar with the Peres Peace Team, a side of Israeli and Palestinian players that came together for the 2008 International Cup with the support of the Peres Centre for Peace and a number of Australian business supporters. A social Aussie rules scene also exists in Israel, profiled by WFN in the article Footy in Israel - From St Kilda to the Dead Sea way back in 2005.

Coordinating the team this year is Michael Goldberg, a veteran of Israeli social footy and a member of Melbourne's "Shleppers". Goldberg spoke to WFN about the side's preparations.

Goldberg explains that his connection to the Harmony Cup comes through contact made by Brian Clarke to the social footy scene in Israel. "I was overseas for a while, and used to play casual games in Israel. At some point, Brian made contact with us, and then last December he called me again asking if I wanted to put together a Harmony Cup team."

The recruitment process included looking for eligible players with AFL experience, but Goldberg says that while they successfully got in touch with ex-Richmond forward Ezra Poyas and former Bomber and Kangaroo Julian Kirzner, neither was able to be part of the team. "We contacted Ezra Poyas, but he's got some injury issues. Julian Kirzner is now up in Brisbane, and can't make it down."

The side won't be entirely without professional experience however, with Carlton's David Dickson coaching the team who brings a wealth of coaching experience from elite junior development squads. Goldberg rates Dickson as an excellent communicator, who has been focussing on the team's psychological approach to the game. "Obviously there's only so much he can do skills-wise in such a short period of time, so he's working on things like our decision-making in game situations."

On-field, the spine of the team is likely to be filled with players from the AJAX football club, a Jewish community football club who play in the Victorian Amateur Football Association and have achieved a reasonable amount of success in the VAFA.

Goldberg says that just under half our team will be players from AJAX, while the other half are from a group that get together to play on Sundays in the Caulfield area. "We couldn’t take more players from AJAX because the guys have their own pre-season schedule, but also, one of the reasons we’ve got social players is that there are a lot of guys who can't play club footy on Saturdays and it's a chance for them to get a game."

The informal Sunday footy group in question are the Caulfield-based "Shleppers", who count a number of Orthodox Jews in their group who can't play sport on Saturdays for religious reasons. Goldberg adds however that the Shleppers get people from many different backgrounds coming along for a kick on a Sunday, Jews and non-Jews alike.

The Shleppers achieved a degree of notoriety in Melbourne back in 2007 where the Glen Eira City Council kicked them off the Caulfield East football ground where they were meeting, and fined a number of members for playing footy on a council park without a permit. The incident provoked a great deal of community backlash against the local government in question, for what was seen as an overly harsh reaction to a completely informal group who had created a popular Sunday morning tradition in the suburb.

Goldberg says they are still having trouble finding a ground to play on for the regular Shleppers kickaround sessions, although for Team Israel training they've been able to use the Oakleigh Chargers' home ground Warrawee Park. They have also had some luck in organising a practice match for the weekend prior to the Cup, making contact with Team India/Sri Lanka and pencilling in a friendly match for March 14th.

Team Israel can be contacted via their Facebook group. The following YouTube clip is a Melbourne TV news report from 2007, surrounding the Shleppers and their struggles to find a venue to kick the Sherrin.