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Offside: My Life on Australia’s Politically Tribal Football Terraces
I was only seven years old when I was indoctrinated into my first political tribe.
The year was 1991, and the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia was on the brink of a civil war that would devastate its Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian population and leave 140,000 people dead.
My parents hailed from the then Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but left the country in 1970 in pursuit of a better life in Australia. Surprisingly, the Republic of Macedonia managed to declare its independence from Yugoslavia in September of 1991 without being pulled into yet another bloody balkan war.
But the country would not slip seamlessly into independence. Protestations erupted out of its southern neighbour, Greece, around the name ‘Macedonia’ — something Greece claimed infringed upon its own history and territorial sovereignty. The country introduced a debilitating trade embargo on its landlocked northern neighbour, and stoked the flames of nationalism amongst both Macedonians and Greeks in Australia.
The Early Years
I recall receiving my first football jersey as a young kid back in 1989 when I was just six. It bore red and black stripes, mimicking the kit of both Macedonia’s top football club, FK Vardar, and Preston Makedonia — a club based…