Here I am in London in 1996 during the UEFA European Championships. I’d just moved to the UK. I was finding my feet, making friends and slowly building a life that felt like home.
Football (or soccer, as we insist on calling it in Australia) had always been part of my upbringing. My dad was a player and coach and was instrumental in establishing one of Canberra’s football clubs. My mum and her bestie volunteered in the club canteen on game day. My sister and I would run around with all the other players’ kids and be allowed a bag of chips and a raspberry and lemonade at the end of the final game. My Opa (grandfather) was a fiercely loyal Feyenoord supporter – he learned to use the internet in his 80s so he could follow their games online.
In 1996, with England hosting the Euros, and having a Dutch mother and an English father, I found myself happily caught up in football madness and a part of two supporter groups. I loved everything about it. The atmosphere. The songs (who remembers Vindaloo?!). The colours. The optimism. The way complete strangers would end up hugging in a pub simply because they were wearing the same colours and willing the same team to win.
But my favourite part always came after the final whistle: once it was a respectable hour in Australia, I’d ring my Opa. We’d debrief every match, question the referee’s decisions and relive the best moments as though we were sitting together in the same lounge room instead of being on opposite sides of the world.
I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but those conversations were never really about football. They were about staying connected to each other and to our Dutch heritage.
Late last year, I returned to the Netherlands for the first time in almost twenty years. It was also the first time I’d been there with my husband and daughter. Watching them fall in love with Holland brought me enormous joy. We spent time with my mother’s oldest friend. We ate Dutch food. We attempted the language (apologies to the people on the receiving end of that!). We caught as much public transport as possible because I love watching people and striking up conversations with strangers. We wandered neighbourhoods that felt both familiar and completely new.
It felt like reconnecting a part of myself that had gone missing.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched Dutch supporters filling streets and stadiums across North America with their orange shirts, their double-decker bus, their songs and the wonderfully ridiculous left-right dance.
My Opa and my mum are no longer here to watch it with me, and I miss them – AND watching it all unfold makes me feel connected to them again.
It’s easy to dismiss sport as “just a game”, but I think it gives us something much more important: reason to gather together, shared identity, conversations with strangers, memories that span generations, a sense of belonging.
Sadly, my beloved Oranje have now bowed out of the tournament. England is still there, as are our wonderful, young Socceroos. But if I’m honest, I don’t really care about who wins. What I love most about this tournament has less to do with football and more about watching people come together. The Scots in Boston (who could forget the song ‘No Scotland, Not Party’ to the tune of Seven National Army?); the Orange army everywhere; the magnificent Norwegians and their rowing.
In my work, I find the moments that really stick with people are not so much the models or the frameworks: it’s the connections they build with other participants and to parts of themselves. It might be a deep conversation they’ve had with another participant or things they’ve learned about themselves through listening to others. Or it might simply be realising that they are not alone and that others share their fears, hopes or experiences. Sometimes it is because they have a shared interest in a sport or team.
Whether it’s around a football match, in a leadership program, over coffee after the gym or around a family dinner table, we all need spaces where we feel we belong.
The more I reflect on what brings meaning to my own life, the more I keep returning to the same three ideas: Connection, community and actively finding the joy. These are not simply platitudes or nice ideas: they are some of the most important ingredients for a life well lived.
