Melrose FC working with young refugee players from Burundi, Congo and Kenya

Young players from Burundi, Congo and Kenya have been welcomed in by the club, shown their skills in the purple shirt and formed new friendships with the locals.

Melrose coach Darren Colston has worked closely with the group, giving his time to not only build their understanding of the game but to nurture a culture of inclusivity.

"Three years ago, we did some clinics in the Springdale Heights area for kids that might not have been exposed to soccer and there were two or three African boys who really took to it," Colston said.

"One of the boys was highly skilled but, in his words, he'd only ever played with a ball stuffed with paper. They'd only been out of their refugee situation for six months so I said 'come down and we'll give you a home.'

"He came down and he kept bringing a mate each week!

"Most of the boys in that first year couldn't even speak English.

"One boy spoke a bit and I used him as an interpreter but with all my training sessions, the night before, I would get on the internet, work out the rules of a training game we were going to have and convert it, word for word, into Swahili so they could have a vague idea of what we were trying to do.

"It took a lot of work early days but, gee, they've been worth every ounce of the time you put in."

Colston, a joint-winner of AWFA's volunteer-of-the-year award for 2021, has seen the players' soccer knowledge grow each year but some things have given him even more satisfaction.

"The first year or so, when you were having a kick around before training started, there would always be two groups," he said.

"I would have to say to them 'come on, there's only one colour here, we're purple. We're not white, we're not black, let's kick together.'

"It's not that anyone was trying to leave anyone out, it was just a comfort zone thing.

"The African boys would just kick amongst themselves and the other guys would do the same.

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"But I remember in pre-season this year, standing there at training, and I saw one of the white kids pick up a ball.

"One of the black kids walked over to him and they started kicking the ball together.

"No-one said 'come and do this' and that was the first time I'd seen it.

"I went 'wow, it's starting to happen.'

"There was no 'my group' and 'your group', it was just 'us'.

"That's the way I always hoped things would go.

"It's a real testament to AWFA and how they're embracing refugees.

"All of a sudden, there's been a lot of new faces from different cultures and they've soaked it up and said 'come to us.' It's been great."

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