52 - The End of Boyhood

 We played our beloved game for as long as our legs held up, but with the years gone by the agility of youth was lost, the bones have become more fragile, the breaths shorter. The football matches we played became less frequent. Contrived and with rigid rules, they lost much of the spontaneity and passion of those boyhood days: the fuss about finding a decent ball and a pitch, the laughter, the arguments, the camaraderie, the celebrations and embraces after goals and wins, the collective disappointment after a defeat, all that special friendship amongst boys, which football and team sports glue together, entails.

The dusty streets and sandlots, the scratched knees and elbows covered with sweat, blood and soil, vanished under concrete structures and asphalted streets choked with cars. The rare games, in the margins of our spare time and the other priorities life dictates, such as family and work, were played in proper pitches, with goals and lines, even turfed surfaces, but they lacked in spirit. Our childhood dreams did not materialise. And whilst our ageing bodies were declining in a sport that demands strength and vigour and endurance, we adapted in passively enjoying the spectacle of what we used played in our boyhood, outsiders in the stands of an arena or a ground, in cafés or pubs with one or two or more beers, or spread out on a couch. With the same frequency and interest, it must be said, and similar breadth and depth of emotions, such as those that stirred us in our boys’ ball games.

A lot has been written about the psychology, the way of the communal thinking and behaving of football fans. The literature on the subject seems inexhaustible. Perhaps, being a fan does not just offer an illusion of active participation in a game from the stands or an armchair. The dedication and subsumption into the sport, sometimes to the point of brushing aside and even withdrawing from other social activities, with obsessive discussions about rules and techniques and statistics, ad nauseum analysis of tactics and strategy, before, during, and after a match, seems difficult to explain just by a temporary psychological connection, which is nevertheless emotionally intense and in an inexplicable disproportionality with an object that is merely an entertainment show. A club with its symbols and slogans, banners and songs, a team and its players on the field, are elevated to an über alles entity, a deity almost -to be worshiped. Nor is supporting a club offers oneself a tentative illusion of security via attachment to a collective linked by objectives and a purpose, however insignificant compared with far more important events taking place around us. Nor is it just a way out and an escape from the often-unbearable everydayness, as another manifestation of Marxist alienation from the process of capitalist production. Or, perhaps, it is a combination of the above with different weights for each individual fan.

Once Albert Camus, the philosopher who inspired me in my youth and whom I re-read forty years after the first acquaintance equipped with the maturity of years past, so much so that many of his thoughts and findings still lead me in what is left of life, was asked by a friend whether he preferred theatre or football. He replied: “Football, without hesitation!”. He dealt passionately with both, it seems. Several times I thought that this ‘without hesitation’ claim was in harmony with his philosophy of the Absurd. Both the footballer and the actor are ‘players’ of the Absurd in a desolate and transient world, without gods and eternity, fully conscious of the finitude of life. Both the footballer and the actor express during a match or a theatrical performance, a separation and a detachment, a ‘divorce’ of the man from his life, which are manifestations of the Absurd. For the ‘players’ and spectators of a drama that lasts a few minutes, these are the only moments of a unique experience with no counterpart in eternity, amongst a multitude of finite ones whose aggregate total constitutes life. After all, our life is the sum of our experiences and memories. The same philosopher wrote that belief in the Absurd should prioritize quantity over quality of these experiences, diversity over repetition and uniformity.

“What I know, what is certain, what I cannot deny, what I cannot reject, are all that counts. I understand only in human terms”. Everything that a man can see, touch, hear, feel, spontaneously or, for that matter, because of ‘playing’ or ‘acting’, is the only thing one comprehends. In the case of Camus and not just, the sense of football for the common folk, either the experience of playing it or being absorbed by its spectacle as a fan, is more intense and, perhaps, his perception and understanding better, than that of a theatrical play. In the spirit of Camus, I realized that I loved and still love football merely for the range and diversity of emotions it excites, for their transience and reappearance in different shades and hues in each game, for the integral of infinitesimal impressions it has imprinted onto the soul and mind. We live for such little things and joys, one could say. Why not sense and embrace them as much as we can and as long as we exist?

I left boyhood behind me, along with that unique friendship with Kostakis, after our street games were curtailed and our paths diverged since joining different secondary schools. It ended on a Sunday afternoon at the stands of the Harilaou stadium where we watched together our beloved team playing against Olympiakos, the football giants of the capital. It was an afternoon where I nearly choked, when balls of the Styrofoam pad I was sitting on and chewing in tension were nearly stuck in my throat, after the deep breath I took before cheering an Aris’ goal. It was the last day I met with Kostakis, my closest boyhood friend, to share our enjoyment of a football related activity. It could be also said that day marked the end of boyhood itself. The game in Greece was entering a long period of decline, the quality of the show was getting poorer, the crowds in football grounds were dwindling, the hooliganism from a core of fanatics were pervading the game. For several years that followed it was reduced to only a few rare escapes from the shackles of parental controls and the imperative of getting an education, and those mainly in front of the TV or watching basketball, still considered more civilised, in the city’s enclosed arena.

In the meantime, we had to endure adolescence in our own individual ways: that age of more dreams and ambitions yonder, as much as worries and unbearable frustrations. Other types of passion were coming to the fore, as we were growing into men.

51e - Football! (All Around)

 I had regained some of my lost freedom, under the blue skies and the abundant sunlight of the Greek afternoons, to roam the boys’ world, my world, to play football with Kostakis and friends, and when football was impeded by the external factors, other more mundane games. The older we grew the wider the neighbourhood and city had opened their arms wide to. Freedom is a concept impossible to define and even to describe it, that is, to put it unambiguously and unequivocally in words, but the feelings from its conquest are more clear, unique and irrefutable. You seek freedom and when you get some of it you feel it to the extent it was conquered it and in proportion to the effort you made to earn it. From the nearby sandlot, where we became persona non grata from the despised Theologian, we took to the streets with a ball under our arms to more exotic and distant corners of the city: to the large open space on Constantinople Street, on which decades later the council built a school, but in our time usually occupied by children, even youth amateur league teams; to the seafront parks, but where the fear of been chased away threat by groundsmen and even the occasional miserable pensioner, who enjoyed his peace on a bench by the grass; even in PAOK's training  ground in Ano Toumpa, for which we had to cross streams and what was left of the grandma’s shanty town, for a few minutes of football on a pitch of professional standards, regular goalposts and (yes!) grass. Alas, the unprecedented joy lasted only a few minutes, before the groundsman noticed us and chased us out with swearing and shouting that surpassed those of Theologian, as if we were committing sacrilege in a holy place.

We played football wherever there were space and time: in the streets, the parks, the sandlots and construction sites of the city, in the schoolyard despite explicit prohibitions and potential confiscation of anything that resembled a ball, during school trips, where football matches between classes were meticulously planned by self-appointed leaders. Football anywhere, anytime and by any means available: with plastic, leather, tiny rubber balls hidden in our pockets for the school breaks, usually unnoticeable by the keen eyes of Ms. Vanda and Mr. Eugenides and the supervising teachers, who roamed the schoolyard carrying a wooden stick. Even plastic milk bottles after everything else had been confiscated, especially from Ms. Vanda, a spinster who like the Theologian hated children, as much as, one could imagine, football. All these games that lasted from the few minutes of the break between classes, until several hours after school into the dusk and until darkness made the ball invisible, left indelible impressions: for the joy, the carefreeness, the anger and pain -physical and emotional, the antagonism, the bullying. Perhaps our souls are partially formed by the energy born out of invisible forces that develop through friendships, by the integration into a team and a group, any group, by the individual contribution to the ephemeral purpose of winning a game, the camaraderie that is born out of team games, one playing for all, and all for one. Impressions of all kinds: the disappointment from a wretched defeat; the ecstasy from scoring a goal that led to victory; the thrill from pride by the praises I received from our school star-player, Papaeconomou, the greatest football talent in primary school, for my performance in a couple of makeshift games; the humiliation I felt from the school bully and self-appointed captain of the class-team, Deliyiannis, who always had the first and last say in the line-ups, and his scolding to me and vice-captain Goutas (who had selected me despite Deliyiannis’ objections) when I scored an own goal in New Helvetia park (‘Goutas, I told you not to have him in our team!’ he exclaimed followed by swearing); the excitement when I wore a shirt with the number 7 grandma had sewn on its back, in an ‘official’ match with the class in one of our final school trip.

Little by little, the natural boyish enthusiasm and longing for playing the game with friends became a passion for the sport itself. With the end of primary school, the painful onset of adolescence, the neighbourhood friends and schoolmates were dispersed to secondary schools in different parts of the city. Football on Sunday afternoons and holidays in the open spaces that the few remaining sandlots around the city, died down as those were disappearing under the relentless construction of blocks of apartments or parking lots. The sweat on our faces by the heat of the sun, the panting from playing ball, the shouts, the arguments and the fights, the celebrations and contentment or disappointment for nothing, all those memories, precious nevertheless, were pushed further into the depths of memory. Some fleeting, naïve dreams of playing for Aris Salonika, as did Papaeconomou, in the Harilaou stadium, which in the meantime had been turfed, in front of thousands of cheering fans, were quashed at the onset of adolescence and the imperative of education.

Kostakis and I changed from mildly talented ballers into devout fans. Before the game week had even started, we would have rushed to the bet-shops of Koudas, a former PAOK captain, or anyone who served as a ticket agent in the city, or the box office of the stadium, to buy tickets for a derby before they were sold out. And early on Sunday mornings we would walk down Constantinople Street to the Harilaou district to the east outskirts of the city, hours before kick-off to wait for groundsman Solon to opened the gates, to rush in and reserve a good seat amongst the crowds of Aris’ faithful: to Gate 1, home of the ‘Holy Company’ of fans, later to Gate 3, behind the goals with the hot-blooded ‘Ultras’. In less important games, we summoned the courage to jump over the railings that enclosed the premiums stands, to Gate 4, under the concrete roof canopy, where tickets were more expensive, but the views better. The Aris’ crowd, and we were merely two of a multitude its miniscule integral molecules, each equipped with the freedom anonymity and the strength a solid uniform mass of people, a mob others might say, possesses and without qualms, demonstrated our support with gestures, shouts and insults, and other vulgar expressions of emotion: our joy and enthusiasm in victories, our disappointment and bitterness in defeats, our rage after any perceived sense of injustice against the team. Today we would barely imagine ourselves and recognize our manners and behaviour at the stands of the Harilaou stadium then.

51d - Football! (Playing Truant to Play Football)

It was one Wednesday afternoon when some schoolmates invited Kostakis and myself for a match on a fenced sandlot of substantial area, free of cars, on Kallidopoulou Street, not far from home. The place was ideal for a proper game of football, however, there was a major hindrance: later in the afternoon, both Kostakis and I, had a scheduled after-school English tutoring class. The temptation to participate in such a match with bigger boys and ‘star players’ of our school, including its top talent, a boy named Papaeconomou, was great -irresistible. I spontaneously decided to skip my English class, although my friend Kostakis resisted the temptation. So that I can satisfy my urge and evading recriminations and the chastising that would be in store if my parents found out, we agreed, after the scheduled end of the English class, we would meet with Kostakis outside the tutoring school to walk home together, as we always did, like nothing happened. No harm would have been done to anyone concerned. What a gap in the learning process missing a two-hour lesson of a foreign language would have left?

I enjoyed my football to the maximum possible that afternoon and utterly satisfied with my performance in the match, but taken away by its flow and the excitement it offered I neglected to check the passage of time. It was dark when the last kick of the game was played and we could barely see the ball, but neither fatigue, nor the dust, nor falling over and scratching elbows and knees would have deterred us from carrying on; only darkness or some higher power. The tutoring school had been closed for some time, before I eventually made my way home: tired, flushed, sweaty, covered in dust. At the intersection of Deligiorgi Street with our alley, a few restless shadows were waiting for me under the dim street lights that illuminated Tsapatsaraina’s corner. Standing there with grandma, Father and Mother, was also Kostakis, standing meekly by his mother, Foula, and his grandmother, Mrs. Marika. My truancy, my choice of football instead of two hours of a boring English lesson, was exposed by Kostakis, inadvertently or not nobody could tell. I was overwhelmed by fatigue to worry about the scolding and yelling of Father and the whatever punishment that would likely ensue, or feel any guilt for the money Father paid for my English lessons and in that instance was wasted.

Upstairs in our apartment, I endured the angry outburst and thundery shouts of Father, in the scale of intensity (and Father always had, even in old age, a thunderous and piercing voice that could shudder people nearby and could be heard throughout our building and beyond). That reaction was expected and did not affect me as much as previous times: ‘You fool! Imposter! Liar! Ungrateful donkey! I pay for you to learn a language and instead you are turning into a vagrant... I will cease your English tutoring from as early as tomorrow...’ and so on. The Mother listened from next door with what, one could say, was a furtive satisfaction and condescension. I stood silent in the middle of the entrance hall with my head hung down in shame, staring at the floor. In the bathroom, where grandma, the most sympathetic of all, took me by hand to have me washed, as she was preparing a bath, Father slapped me for the first (and, it should be noted, the last) time in my life. This shook me and made me cry. Grandma, on my side even in mischief, my only compassionate ally that night, reprimanded him for that slap, in her smooth Asia Minor way: ‘P, my son, he is just a child...’ She wiped my tears away, washed my face and body and comforted me with the towel. Even today, the sympathy and comfort that my grandma showed that evening, her affection and understanding of a child’s way of thinking no one else was capable to show, touches me inside. Mother, with her silence, maintained a muted demeanor and seemingly neutral attitude, but I believe she shared Father's anger without expressing it and consented with the scolding and, perhaps, even the slap. Unruly children in the schools she taught were still at the receiving end of corporal punishment. The model of a diligent and studious child of a fastidious teacher had been shattered that evening at least; I had become one with the neighborhood and school ‘whitebait’, lacking drive, ambitions and serious goals in life.

As the evening progressed the situation deescalated and things gradually calmed down and returned to normal. Second thoughts and some kind of guilt for the violent outburst probably seized Father. Before my bedtime, in a low tone of voice, he asked grandma how I was. Despite the shouting and pretentious threats about my schooling, despite the dominance his manipulative personality exercised over his family environment, physical violence had never been an attribute of his generally unpredictably tempestuous behaviour. The episode of my truancy was forgotten the very next day. None of Father’s threats about having me expelled from the English school or having me locked up in the house in the afternoons or banning me from joining Kostakis downstairs strictly materialised.

I never played the truant again; neither from tutoring nor, of course, from school, until perhaps once or twice in the last years of high school. However, our explorations of places where we could play football undistracted continued with the same zeal and gained new dimensions. After work and food, Father would take the usual refuge in the bedroom for the established and non-negotiable afternoon nap, the titirla as he humorously called it in a good mood, but for a short period after my truancy, I was quarantined in the afternoon his bedroom, having me lying next to him in the double bed. He was fixated by the idea that Kostakis and friends would get together downstairs for play, and I would be tempted to follow their lead to the detriment of schoolwork. Yet, I found impossible to evade that temptation. My resolve was too feeble to resist the call for a kickabout. Playing with friends on the streets is the opium of childhood. I counted to a hundred, sometimes even to two hundred, or until I heard Father's snoring, and I slipped quietly out of my bed-prison. With admirable technique and causing minimal noise I opened the lock of the front door of the apartment, which was frighteningly close to the bedroom, and I slipped out into the hallway and the staircase to freedom. Shutting without keys the slightly creaking front-door (Father for the benefit of an undisturbed siesta oiled the door hinges frequently), the noise from the latch bolt when it was shut, was an agonizing and time-consuming process. Yet again, I was thinking, even if Father woke up from his slumber, which often lasted hours, there would no way he would have the reserves and drive to bring me back shouting. At worst, he would call my name in vain in the empty apartment, turn on the other side, and complete his siesta.

51c - Football! (In the Streets and the Sandlots)

Grandpa and Father might have unwittingly charted the path, but most of my love for the game I owe it to a friendship with two neighborhood boys. First and foremost, to my peer and classmate Kostakis, less so to a couple of years younger Christakis, whose presence, although usually on the fringes of the little gang we formed, was always desirable, since he made up a critical mass for certain games his shortcomings due to age: our friendly football encounters could become three-way match – a sort of novelty, or the one-a-side duels tournaments with points. Sometimes the three friends formed the core of small teams that played with others from nearby neighbourhoods.

But all started in the small front yard of the old Kazineris’, Kostakis grandparents’ house in our alley across our block, or in our little street itself, our little football patch bounded by an L-shaped formed by the walls of the old house and an annex of the house of Tsapatsaraina, the legendary tavernier of Deligiorgi Street. Our street was not asphalted, it had potholes and grooves, and it offered in inadequately small area, so the trio of friends had to expand their range into the adjacent Deligiorgi Street, still narrow but at least asphalted, in front of Tsapatsaraina’s taverna. The tavernier and her husband, even the Jew Isaac and his brother a little further away, left us undistracted to play our games. Horse drawn carts and cars passed by the street or parked on it were still a few in those years, although their sporadic appearance caused unwanted interruptions to the flow of our play. The rarity of these incidents made them an interesting sight, but in later years of increasing traffic and less free space, their nuisance was tolerated them with stoicism. All that was really needed was a ball, any kind of ball: made of rubber, even from cheap plastic, which never took long before it bursts and the ball-kicks turned into cap-kicks. In the latter days of maturing childhood, we afforded a cheap leather ball. One of us would have always ensured its supply -at all costs!

The most appealing site in the neighborhood for playing our ball was a sandlot on the far bank of the stream that dissected the long Gambetta Street at one end of our alley. That stream could not be crossed by car, but only on foot through Gambetta Stret and that was not even possible in days of heavy rainfall. But cars and people could cross it over the small bridge through Deligiorgi Street, at the other end of our insignificant alley. over a small bridge. At the intersection of the stream with the dirt road that was still Gambetta Street, at one corner stood a shanty where an elderly couple lived, rarely seen behind permanently closed shutters, opposite weather-battered old willow tree, whose trunk leaned downwards and parallel to the ground until after two or three it inclined towards the sky. Its shade was an oasis of coolness in hot midsummer afternoons and its trunk, which we could easily climb and sit on it, a good place for a rest from our games and a chat. Under its shade in a hot afternoon after a game under the sun, I passed out for the first time in my life.

The square sandlot, about a dozen meters wide, was bounded by the Gambetta Street, a row of old houses and the usually dry bank of the stream and its diagonal, which started at the willow tree at one corner, at the other reached the gate of a more prominent two-storey house, that belonged to a teacher of theology, who spread fear and terror amongst the children of the neighborhood and, I presumed, the kids of the school where he taught his religious classes. That sandlot naturally offered a more than satisfactory pitch, because its relatively flat surface; it was ideal for impromptu matches amongst the three friends, but also with children from nearby neighbourhoods and sometimes gangs of kids from distant areas that were attracted by the open flat space, a brand-new leather-ball that we might have brought, as well the adventures the stream and its banks offered, especially after some heavy rainfall. With a pair of stones or our shirts for goal-posts on each side, that plot of land could be transformed into a decent football ground. For many years, the bank of that stream that descended from the Seih Sou hills and Upper Toumpa drew us in afternoons like a magnet, for kicking a ball in its dust, until dusk or until our grandmas’ calls from the other side of the stream asked us back home.

51b - Football! (From the Stands)

With Father, we did go twice, maybe thrice, to watch matches in football grounds proper. On the first occasion, I barely remember, was at an evening game under the floodlights of Thessaloniki’s Municipal Stadium, the so called ‘Kaftanzoglio Stadium’, named after a great Thessalonian architect of the 19^th century. It was also the home ground of the third, in terms of popularity team of our city, Hercules FC. I never understood why such a lesser club deserved such a large capacity, modern stadium. Flanked by Father and Grandfather, sitting on one of the low tiers of the crowded stands, we watched Hercules playing against Aris Salonica FC, in one of the three local derbies of the Greek top division calendar. I was too young a boy at that time to fully comprehend what was happening on the pitch and not yet a favourite team to support, and I remained indifferent as the game was evolving and rather unstirred by goals scored and the result. In football, of course, emotions can run high amongst fans that understand and are initiated to its rules, rituals and mysteries. I was more impressed by the modern stadium, the blinding floodlights, the turf glowing under those bright lights, the shadows of the fans crammed on the stands, the smell of tobacco, the chill of the winter evening pleasantly moderated by people squeezed next to each other, who seemed to care much more than me with what was happening on the pitch.

Granpda was also a team sports and, therefore, football fan. From a young age, since his Melnikian family resettled as refugees in Thessaloniki, after the Bucharest agreement in 1913, he became a fan of Aris Salonica, since its founding as a club a year later. Football, amongst the refugee folk that poured into the city from Asia Minor and the Balkans somehow dispelled the fog of misery; it became an escape from the gray daily routine of workers like him, lifted the mood and made the arrival of Monday mornings more tolerable. Grandpa might have also played some football in his youth, although I could find no evidence of such thig. But in older age he joined the board of an amateur local sports club, MENT, and frequented its nominated café to discuss with friends and members, beside the administration and football matters, the trepidations of life and current affairs issues from the Athenian political circus. One of the last images my memory retained of grandpa, was in the night before he was taken back to the psychiatric clinic, where he finally died. He was in his short red gown, sitting in an armchair of our living room, watching silently a televised match from the 1974 World Cup. It was a rare instant when three generations of men, all sharing the same passion for football. It also serves as a consolation to know that something we have loved since we were boys, it will be there to excite us until close to our end.

I watched the first game of my favourite team ever since, Aris Salonica, in its still unturfed home ground, rather euphemistically branded as ‘stadium’, in the Harilaou district, then still at the eastern outskirts of the city. It was a game in a warm sunny autumn Sunday afternoon, at the beginning of another football season, indelibly etched in memory. The atmosphere in the ground was lively and colourful, filled with anticipation and excitement. It was far surpassing any other live event I had experienced before. The hubbub from the Aris’ fans pouring into the stands from the just opened gates and scattered like ants on the stands, the aroma of tobacco from the almost exclusively male crowd, smokers in its majority, the announcements from the loudspeakers, two black and yellow flags waving on either side of the board that displayed the scoreline under the also in of a large mechanical clock -also in yellow and black colours. Laughter and jokes and banter, a cheerful mood all around us: soon the match would start and what a better something could have happened for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon in the lives of working people!

Vendors sold orangeades and lemonades of the ‘Florina-Sour Water’ brand from a tank of water filled with ice cubes for the thirsty fans, others shelled pumpkin and sunflower seeds to calm nerves from usherette trays. Shouts of ‘Donuts, Lads, Donuts!’ from a vendor in his field day stood out. With admirable agility between the crowded rows cramped shoulders and legs, he moved up and down the stands to serve his clientele. And if a customer's seat was inaccessible, buying and selling took place from a distance: by throwing the merchandise to the seller, coins in the opposite direction, and in extreme cases, hand-to-hand along and across the tiered rows. Father gave me some change to buy a “Florina-Sour Water” orangeade from one of the ice-filled tanks in corner of our stand, the only available brand of refreshments, advertised several times through the loudspeakers. It was sold in small spherical plastic bottles and tasted anything but sour. That taste of ‘Florina-Sour Water’ orangeade I associated as a boy with watching Aris playing in its home ground.

About half an hour before kick-off, a man dragging something like a watering tank sprayed water on the dry pitch surface, which would be considered unplayable by today’s standards. This was followed by the principal and lifelong groundsman and gatekeeper, a wretched individual named Solon, whose name associated with a chant from fans waiting to enter the ground: "Solon, Solon open the gates, don't keep them shut// let us get in before there is trouble and fuss" -chant that I would also sing later. Pushing a cart full of lime, he enhanced the white lines of the pitch: its perimeter, the circles and semicircles, the quarter-circles by the corner flags, the dot at the penalty spot. The enthusiasm and expectations of the crowd, mine amongst them, was intensifying by each moment passing of those preparations.  

It peaked a few minutes before kick-off, when the advertisements from the loudspeakers were suddenly interrupted to present the lineups. The announcement of each surname player of the ‘away’ team, Byzas of Megara, was accompanied by some incongruous booing, but the surnames of the eleven staring players of Aris were followed by intense cheers: Chri-sti-des! ('Oleee!'), Pal-las! …, Nal-ban-dis... Se-mer-tzis..., Spy-ri-don..., Lou-ka-nides..., Rapto-poulos..., Kera-mi-das..., A-le-xia-des... Sy-ro-pou-los! And... Konstantin-ti-ni-des! (Oleee!). The lineup, like many other lineups and players of my favourite team since then, I found easier to memorize than poems or religious hymns at school, and were rather miraculously retained in memory, given their insignificance in life matters. Each surname was pronounced with emphasis and pomp, with an authority that resonated with the cheers; it acquired a special weight and importance, it gave prestige to a group of brave warriors preparing for a grand battle on an unforgivingly hard pitch. Soon, the unsmiling faces in the football cards I used to collect, with the coarse and sometimes ugly features, rushed out of a tunnel through intense applause. The battling cry of thousand in unison: ‘A-ris!’, ‘A-ris!’ pierced the air and the surrounding areas. I felt awkward at the chants, their rhythm and intensity, possibly out of my inherent timidity; a young child among wild ecstatic men who felt like home. And my hair stood on the back the neck from that vague excitement that overwhelms fans at the beginning of a match, and a shiver ran through my spine, probably out of latent pride for a team that I have supported ever since. The crowd of thousands merged into a single soul and voice, in unison behind the eleven warriors in the yellow and black kit. It was fully anticipated, that day like every Sunday, each one of them would give body and soul, would shed sweat and perhaps blood, for a rather ephemeral aim of a victory on the pitch, for that ‘black-and-yellow shirt’, for some abstract, and many would argue pointless, ideals, like winning the league or a cup at the end of a season long journey -underdogs against the powerhouses of Athenian clubs. I felt a sense of belonging in that multitude of strangers, united by those abstract aims and ideals and, for that matter, united in a yearning for victory. The team real victory would be an own fictitious victory. It was something of no substance and would not materialistically affect lives in the slightest, but it would temporarily unleash, for better or worse, a spectrum of emotions, necessary intangible constituents of a human life worth living. I became one with this crowd and group, an entity seemingly superior and more powerful, standing above the insignificant individual self. It was perhaps not so much the case for self-centred personalities or big egos, like Father, to be identified with any undifferentiated mass of common people.

Aris’ starting eleven, after they emerged from the tunnel, lined up in two rows for a photo shoot. The front row of players squatted, the back row players stood behind the first row with their arms folded, goalkeeper Christidis, the captain in an all-black kit, was the first standing from the left. The game began with the ref blowing his whistle through a crescendo of cheers and chants. By this time round I obtained a better understanding of the game: of its rules, the throw-ins, the corner and free kicks, even the offsides. The fans, biased of course, disputed most referee decisions against the team, apart from some blatantly obvious calls, and their protestations were accompanied by boos and insults. The linesmen, running back and forth along the byline and close to the well-fenced stands, were enduring a similar verbal abuse each time they raised the flag for any debatable call against the home team, yet they remained admirably indifferent to the insults directed at them from arm’s length behind their backs. They did not turn heads even to face on occasions torrent of abuse, which, I thought, would have been a natural human reaction. How could they put up with some extreme foul language and swearing? How could they remain undisturbed and fearless, when some of the most fanatics were climbing the tall guardrails and gesticulating menacingly towards them?

For long periods during the match, I ignored Aris’ attacking attempts, and watched with admiration my idol: goalkeeper Christides, who also happened to be the national team goalie. As Aris was having most of the possession and the initiative in the game, he habitually left his penalty area, ventured close the centre circle and watched the game with his arms folded - like another spectator. He displayed a confidence, an arrogance even, our haughty and imposing captain in his all-black outfit. Shouldn’t he have stood closer to his goalposts and protect them, just in case, despite his scorn and show some more respect to the visitors, I wondered.

Then we had the goals. A sudden loud shout of "Gooaaal!", which reached new heights on the decibel scale, took me aback and I shuddered. I tried to stand tall, on my toes, a short stature amongst animated bodies of grown-ups in a pandemonium of celebrations, so that I can discern what had happened -identify the goal scorer at least. The stadium and Harilaou district must have thundered. A hard earned and long coveted victory was coming our way. The stand, filled with happy smiling faces, stood erect from their seats a few minutes before the end, throwing their Styrofoam cushions to the skies. The noise from the stands, a mixture of cheers, bravos and laughter, expressed happiness, bliss. The scoreboard, updated by the hands of a willing volunteer, showed the wanted result: Aris 2 – Byzas 1. After the final whistle, Aris’ players got together, arranged themselves in a line and raised their arms to all four sides of the field in succession to greet their fans, in a storm of applause and bravos’ and ‘well done, guys!’ If Aris won, his fans also won. With the joy of the football victory painted on faces, a joy of a magnitude that is scientifically inexplicable, they left the ground en masse, many with clenched fists and raised arms. A week of work in offices and factories that had been forgotten for a couple of hours, would start again with the higher morale. A therapeutic effect of the victory of one’s favourite club was brough about.

As soon as Father began to work standard office hours as an employee of the state telecom company, he devoted weekday and Sunday afternoons, strictly and exclusively his rest and indolence and to dampened worries around work; the hours of siesta after lunch gained unwavering importance and were given inviolable priority in life. Despite a conscious distancing from football stadiums and the amorphous mass of dedicated fans, which he considered common and rough and uneducated, he regularly reminded family and friends of his short amateur tenure and, for that matter, with a dose of pride: "I had talent in two things: mathematics and football!", he used to say. And he had small talks with neighbours and friends, over Sunday's matches and around football matters in general, and rarely missed filling the weekly betting slip with football predictions -motivated mostly by a hope of winning millions. Needs, priorities, habits change, but there is always a residue remains at older age: an interest that motivates us to watch one match and the next, to try and rationally over-analyse, normally without coherence and depth and purpose, to discuss it endlessly with friends, as if it were about a great love, to let it affect us with joy and happiness, disappointments and bitterness, perhaps more vividly and intensely than other topics. As a boy, he did not stand in my way to enjoy my football, but neither did he fervently encourage me to engage overjealously in playing or watching it. Football, he advised me, should be treated as entertainment, as two strictly entrenched carefree hours for the relief from main duties-nothing more; not to be taken as seriously as with some ardent fans and brainless fanatics that had ‘no other interest and purpose in life’, and usually plentiful of leisure time at their disposal. As such, it is not worth of great disappointments and sorrow; there are other sources to draw joy and optimism from. Above all, it should by no means divert my focus from school and education -my main duty as a child. Any slim chance of joining a club’s academy with the even more unlikely prospect of making a living from football had been ruled out from early on, even though, as I believed, I possessed some talent comparable to Father’s, which he often liked to speak to people about. Yet, like every boy, I could not help but keep dreaming that one day I might be playing behind the guardrails, fully kitted, on a pitch and in a team proper, with people watching and applauding.  

There were consolations against the back drop of parental restrictions for the sake of studying and obtaining a decent education and climbing the social ladder. In Thessaloniki’s commercial centre for general shopping, with Mother and less often with Father, the basement of the "Kantrantzos SPORT" department store in Tsimiski Street always offered some of the treats I was hoping for. I was drawn to that basement by the smell of leather and plastic emanating from a huge basket in the middle full of balls: for football, for basketball, for volleyball, that I might choose for my holidays or because a previous ball had been stolen or destroyed in street games with school and neighbour friends. My family ensured that I would always be in possession of a ball, in sound condition, to take and kick and play in courtyards, in streets and sandlots. And at the onset of childhood proper, little Costas, Costakis, entered my life! The neighborhood kid, the best friend, the ardent football fan, a talented player of the game at school -third most skillful player in our elementary school by the mutual consent, a fan of the same club –Aris of Salonica and its top scorer, Alexiades, admirer of the Brazilian national team and Pelé. Filip met Nathaniel, one might have said. My passion for football found an eager partner in Costakis: to play in the streets, in the small yard of his grandparents, the school yard and the parks, in the anticipation of Sunday league games and world cups, in endless chats about our beloved team and favourite players. And for years we became regulars of the stands of the Harilaou and the other two major stadia of our hometown.

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51a - Football! (On the Telly)

There are passions, which, after taking hold in childhood, evolve into an unquenchable devotion, in many ways pointless, that can last for as long as we have sense of space and time and retain some of our faculties, often to the very end. Football and chess were two of them for me, even though I did not manage to excel in either.

Father in his youth must have had this little fire in him which he tried to conceal -from me at least: a fire for playing football, the team sport of his time, the “beautiful game”, already popular in his city, the country and the world. Although, throughout his adult life, only on occasions did he appear to display a keen interest as a spectator-fan, as a boy and student he often played the game –in the streets and the sandlots of a rapidly expanding city landscape. This is what some of photos from the 1950’s evidenced, in which he posed in the football kit of his university team, over a skinny torso and rather stubby legs -a body cut for playing football, one might have said.

Before the purchase of our first TV set, on Sundays, when Father took his vital, couple of hours nap, I used to crouch in a corner of my room listening to the small radio and being enthralled by a full of drama broadcast from the hoarse and emblematic voice of Yannis Logothetis -the main state radio football sportscaster. How could a theology graduate manage to deliver live football commentaries with such eloquence and fervour and fluency, with no pauses, no errors, no faltering, in incredible detail and a tempo commensurate with the speed of passing the ball from one player to another? Concurrently with the ritual of Sunday afternoon broadcast, I kept notes of the scorelines on a notepad and had Father informed of those when he woke up. We would then check the results against the betting slips with his football predictions. When I grew up, I indulged in the same betting with some of my pocket money, with bets that rarely paid off.

Only a few Sundays that I remember, Father and I went to the stadium to watch our favourite team; a few because he would rarely sacrifice his afternoon siesta for a sub-standard sports event, still played amateurishly on dry unturfed grounds. Yet, football in all forms, either playing it or listening to or watching it, was my main entertainment of Sunday winter afternoons throughout childhood. It was entertainment for the masses, the common folk as they say, a game mainly embraced by the lower classes and my class, whilst considered déclassé and common by the elites. In a family, which was standing slight above the lower working strata of the city, my Sunday afternoon football fun was part of a leisurely routine that included a three-course meal of Greek salad, roast beef and galaktoboureko at Nionios' restaurant or a take-away from the legendary burger grill of Takis Kalousis; unforgettable flavours that seemed to go hand in hand with the anticipation of the afternoon events and audio broadcast that followed, before another week of routine at school or work began.

Then, in 1970, Father purchased out first TV! A magical cube, a box of wonders, the ‘mad-box’ as grandma called it. It was of a certain Grundig brand with a black and white display (as color television in Greece took a few more years before it was introduced) and hard-to-adjust controls, by pressing buttons or rotating switches in two columns. There were only two state channels then, but interruptions for ‘technical’ or other reasons in the broadcast were frequent and the tuning and control our TV awkward. It was placed centrally on the ad-hoc shelf of the bookcase, across the sofa and a pair of assorted armchairs in our long and narrow sitting-room. Since its purchase, we invariably watched the still rare live broadcasts of European and world football. The prelude with the Eurovision anthem always caused a stir in me, and raised the levels of anticipation and excitement. It was followed by the pulsating and enchanting commentary of the peerless sports commentator Yiannis Diakoyiannis, whose special voice tone caused a pleasant resonance to the senses and mind and added color to the action projected to the black-and-white screen from a stadium of an exotic European metropolis. Diakoyiannis’ skilfully interposed pauses, when only the noise and the chants from the crowd in the stands could be heard in the background, prepared us for his next comment or punchline: about the A or B footballer or coach, the team, the country, an associated historical event, criticism on tactics and techniques, as well as the occasional interjection of a political innuendo. His commentary always managed to enthral and thrill despite the primitive technology by today's standards. Yiannis Diakoyiannis was listened by my generation of football fans with reverence, no matter how uneventful the unfolding spectacle might have been, and became an icon of my childhood.  

More often, on Sunday evenings, our interest focused on the late sports program aptly name "Sports Sunday", which Diakoyiannis also presented alternatively with his rather less talented associate Fountoukidis. The program included some crudely edited clips from the artless and unspectacular matches of the day in Greek league, so often infested by time wasting, feign injuries, and was on occasions interrupted by the more interesting (for the boy fans or fanatics, at least) fights on and off the pitch, between players, coaches, officials and sometimes fans, and invariably followed by vehement protestations and expressions of indignation from the defeated team and bitter public comments from club officials. Especially, after the major local derbies in Athens or Thessaloniki, these matches were frequently culminated in violent incidents in and around the grounds. I realized from early on that in Greek football rarely a defeat was considered fair by the supporters of the defeated team, and based on merit and the ability of the opposition, and always left a bitter taste with insinuations of cheating and referee bias. On the other hand, the English league matches I watched videotaped from the muddy and sometimes snowy grounds on Saturday afternoons captivated me as much as those of my local team, which I supported as a child. But I noticed the contrast: in England, winners and losers shook hands despite the brutal tackles and fouls or the refereeing mistakes. I found out later that this style of competing had a name: ‘fair play’.  

50c - At Mum's Village (Aftermath)

After the end of Primary School visits to the village became scarcer. I had a tall mountain of education and exams to climb, under the intense pressure and watchful eyes of my parents, along with the travails of adolescence. Yet, Vassilis, his future in life somehow predetermined, kept asking Domna of any plans I might have to visit the village -for a long while, even after I left to study abroad. Years later, in one of our rare visits to the old house, which, after grandpa’s passing became auntie Domna’s and her husband’s home, uncle Peter through the front window pointed to me the stout figure of Vassilis standing in the courtyard of the old grocery store, in front of its adjacent warehouses. "Do you want to go and talk with him? He always asks about you…" I declined: "Let’s leave it for now, maybe another time... It’s awkward after so many years." Decades had passed, personalities reformed, faces and bodies aged and became frighteningly unrecognizable from the children we once were. I saw little meaning in digging out scattered memories from that distant childhood. Their recollection through a small chat between two persons who, once upon a time, were related as friends and playmates renders melancholy, even depression. Besides, conversations about the past with an introvert would have inevitably ended in platitudes and pointless statements and cliches about the irreversible passage of time: "Wow, how come time flies like this… It was like yesterday that we were playing marbles under the tree that is no more, or singing the carols hoping for money instead of treats, or targeting birds with our catapults or getting filthy in your dad’s warehouses..." My introverted nature could hardly have coped. A message exchange after a few months on Facebook, with a vague promise of meeting up in the first opportunity, was the most convenient way out from a return to a past that cannot be relived.

The apples fall under the tree that bore them, as the saying goes, and the two brothers, Vassilis and Alekos, continued and expanded the grocery business of Petros. Judging by the general lack of camaraderie between the two siblings as they were growing up, having divided the inheritance, they set up and established independent, most likely competing chains of convenience stores in the same and the surrounding villages: “Everything Low Price and High Quality!" was the slogan of one, "Whatever you Need is Next to your Doorstep!" of the other. Petros would have been proud. Auntie Domna and uncle Peter, however, like many others in a changing world, opted for the supermarket franchises for their weekly shopping.

Years were gone by, people left so as not to return. Grandparents’ house in the village was rented by an Albanian neighbour after uncle Peter’s passing. One of Vassilis' convenience stores with large, clearly visible signs from afar, across the street from the wholesale drinks trade of my cousins, still thrives at the crossroads despite the competition from major supermarkets nearby. Petros' old grocery store and its warehouses, with their windows covered with shutters, devoid of goods in their emptiness and darkness, are still there, a reminder of a carefree childhood in the rare times I visited ever since.  Oh, and the mortadella, the ‘Macedonian’ halva, the olives, the other delicacies that Domna bought for me from that store.