pjennings
Well-Known Member
A long road to Wembley: The Aussie whose FA Vase bow has been 17,000 miles in the making
If you ask a Herefordian to do an Australian accent, they will likely perform the time-honoured line about shrimps and barbies in the laconic drawl of a Crocodile Dundee, or a Steve Irwin.
Some are better than others, but the truth remains – we don’t get many Aussies around here.
But when you speak to Jimmy Oates – a name that seems to fit perfectly with that rolling, imagined dialect of crocodile wrestlers and Fosters adverts – he talks with a clipped, big-city intensity, one of a Sydneysider.
A Sydneysider who now finds himself halfway across the globe, and five days away from running out at that greatest of English cathedrals, Wembley Stadium.
“My old man is English but has lived in Oz for most of his life. When hear about the the possibility of me running out at Wembley, he was blown away.
"He said there was no way he would miss me playing there - so he's kept to his word and flown over.”
With perhaps the exception of squads from south west London, and the hordes of readily-available antipodean barstaff at their disposal, the number of Australians playing in English football’s ninth tier could be counted on two hands.
The number of those players who were once signed to an A-League-winning squad is smaller still.
The Hartpury Five
In spite of the city’s growing but limited diversity – there was a time when players from Wales would be viewed as a foreign signing - Hereford FC boasts a squad which draws on talent from far beyond the county’s borders.
In the phoenix club’s debut season, in large part thanks a recent and flourishing relationship with Hartpury College, Edgar Street has been graced by standout performances from Mustapha Bundu – who hails from Sierra Leone – and Ghanaian Sirdick Adjei-Grant, both fan favourites, with the latter finishing the season in the kind of breath-taking form that would appear to make the diminutive winger a likely starter at Wembley, against the odds.
If you ask a Herefordian to do an Australian accent, they will likely perform the time-honoured line about shrimps and barbies in the laconic drawl of a Crocodile Dundee, or a Steve Irwin.
Some are better than others, but the truth remains – we don’t get many Aussies around here.
But when you speak to Jimmy Oates – a name that seems to fit perfectly with that rolling, imagined dialect of crocodile wrestlers and Fosters adverts – he talks with a clipped, big-city intensity, one of a Sydneysider.
A Sydneysider who now finds himself halfway across the globe, and five days away from running out at that greatest of English cathedrals, Wembley Stadium.
“My old man is English but has lived in Oz for most of his life. When hear about the the possibility of me running out at Wembley, he was blown away.
"He said there was no way he would miss me playing there - so he's kept to his word and flown over.”
With perhaps the exception of squads from south west London, and the hordes of readily-available antipodean barstaff at their disposal, the number of Australians playing in English football’s ninth tier could be counted on two hands.
The number of those players who were once signed to an A-League-winning squad is smaller still.
The Hartpury Five
In spite of the city’s growing but limited diversity – there was a time when players from Wales would be viewed as a foreign signing - Hereford FC boasts a squad which draws on talent from far beyond the county’s borders.
In the phoenix club’s debut season, in large part thanks a recent and flourishing relationship with Hartpury College, Edgar Street has been graced by standout performances from Mustapha Bundu – who hails from Sierra Leone – and Ghanaian Sirdick Adjei-Grant, both fan favourites, with the latter finishing the season in the kind of breath-taking form that would appear to make the diminutive winger a likely starter at Wembley, against the odds.
& a 'magic lunchbox'.
