Last week was Refugee Week, and to kick it off last Sunday a football match?was staged between the Refugee All Stars and an invitational team made up of local councillors.
By Jamie Melbourne-Hayward
Last week was Refugee Week, and to kick it off last Sunday a football match?was staged between the Refugee All Stars and an invitational team made up of local councillors. The invitational team included Wellington City Councillors Rob Goulden, Andy Foster and Celia Wade-Brown. In the precursor match Team Africa drew one all with Team Asia. For the main event the Wellington Invitational Team, coached by Rob Goulden, lost to the World Refugee All Stars 3 ? 1. Mr Tansley and Mrs Prendergast entertained the crowd on the microphone, with a few gibes aimed at the councillors? fitness levels. Hutt City Councillor Ross Jamieson laced up his ?on loan? football boots to join the invitational team. He says his ?elderly? selection was good in terms of breaking down age barriers, but not much else as he doesn?t consider himself a golden boot. ?I gleamed at soccer when I was six to nine-years-old, and then I went to play rugby and hung up my boots at 38. ?They need some quick substitutes to bring on, football is the international game for many of the refugees?,? Mr Jamieson says. The invitational team has been thoroughly dealt to by the Refugee All Stars for the past three years, so this time round they enlisted the help of Wellington United football players. The Refugee All Stars team consisted of players from Myanmar, Somalia, Iraq, Eritrea, Sudan, Colombia and other countries. Mayor Kerry Prendergast kicked off the match, and radio personality Nick Tansley commentated. At the festival that followed the games the Somali and Assyrian food tables were reduced to crumbs at day?s end, and the Myanmarese and Sudanese entertainment was first-class. Refugee Services Aotearoa New Zealand hosted the match, in partnership with Wellington City Council and Wellington United AFC. The global theme for this year?s World Refugee Day is ?Real People, Real Needs? as set by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugees are innocent victims of war, persecution, discrimination, racism and oppression, forced to flee their homeland for nothing more than their ethnicity, religion or beliefs. World Refugee Day was on the 20 June.
