Forget Kid's Play Here. By Uncle Monty.

Forget Kid's Play Here.

By Uncle Monty.

Photos By Alex Albion.

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Homeless people from all over the world

started the day with their own joyful parade

along Exhibition and Swanston Streets at

Australia's city of Melbourne to mark the

opening day of the 6th World Homeless

Games with perhaps 10.000 onlookers

cheering them on at every step of the way to

their starting matches at Federation Square

Stadium. It is there where 56 nations will

compete in matches to win the coverted ann-

ual trophy of homeless football competition

called: The World Homeless Cup (WHC).

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Forget kid's play here. For serious ball

playing is taken seriously with rules of

good sportmanship and fair play among

the homeless players that are chosen to

represent their country akin to inter-

national footballers with strict amateur

status required to play in the world games.

There is nothing in the world of sports like

the WHC that seem to bring out the best

in most of the homeless people who have

been, or who are, touched at some point

by the sheer magic of the global event of

homeless football that changes, in so many

instances, their lives from despair and home-

lessness and alienation to one of a new sense

and direction of productive citzenship and

new personal goals from their once blighted

and downtrodden lives on the cold streets

of the world's cold humanity toward the

homeless and marginalized. Who could

criticize, then, those homeless folkz for such

new endeavours of their's? Nobody, surely?

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At last night's gathering of the homeless

teams at the University of Melbourne's

Wilson Hall, I bumped into Mel Young,

56, the Scottish founder of WHC and Big

Issue Scotland. He resides in Edinburgh.

I said to Mel jokingly that looked fatter

since our last encounter at Copenhagen

last year for the 5th World Homeless Cup.

He admitted he was fatter due to him

eating sandwiches and junk foods while al-

ways on the go and living presumably out

of a constant suitcase around the world in

his dedicated quest to expand his powerful

concept of the propelling power of football

to change the life of the homeless for the

better. Within six or seven years, Mel

Young has proved without a doubt the

validity of his personal concept with

lives already changed or improved

to say the least.

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I missed the opening WHC press con-

ference this morning at The Edge due

to an unexpected invitation to attend

a good breakfast and workshop on the

growing issues of global criminology

and forsenic photography having been

a police forsenic photographer at one

point in my life. I learned some new

things, but I wasn't really prepared

mentally to digest all the new "isms"

behind today's criminological argue-

ments and technological advances in

forsenic photo-imagery. My mind

was more on the World Homeless

Games, frankly. But, I didn't want to

miss the invitation that came from U.S.

Professor Harold Bramble, who I bump-

ed into the other day at the old Flinders

Street bookshop and he promptly invit-

ed me to have breakfast with him and

to then attend his forum on criminlogy,

which is a subject of immense interest

to me over many years.

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With the professor now behind me, I

then immediately headed to Federation

Square to see what was going on there

before the start of the World Homeless

Street Parade, which I suspect is the

first of its kind in all of Oz and perhaps

in the world, too. At the stadium, two

young, tacky and corny DJ's were loud-

ly introducing various venues and gigs

all in their own type of spiel that was

no joke, frankly. At times, the venues

were almost in a shambles with some

of the primary school kidz confused at

what they were supposed to do in their

hip-hop style and skits of loose-style

dancing or singing. The DJ's ad-libed

too much and talked too much instead

of letting the performers perform

their acts even if some were pretty

unpretty and extremely boring ...

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The only presentation I really enjoyed

was the singing in various languages by

a couple of local professional artists of

Australia's unofficial national anthem:

"Walzing In Matilda." Their presentation

was lovely and their Aussie folk-style

singing was even more lovely to me ...

I sang and clapped along with the

rest of the audience at times ...

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I must close now to attend more of the

football matches at Fed Square and to

met many other homeless guyz and galz

all gathered in one place that represents

the world of homelessness.

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I'm off to Mount Barker at South Australia

early tomorrow morning at sunrise to spend

a night or two with my dear Welsh friends

Carl and Myrna Hancock and their four

wonderful dogz and other pets at some 10 to

12 hour drive from here in central Melbourne.

I should finally get to see, too, some native

kangroos and wombats, etc, etc., in their

open habitat of the Australian wild bush.

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Be good everybody, Uncle Monty.

Ist Day of Advent, 2oo8.

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From My Aussie Buddy Now Living

In The Big Apple After Knowing

Eric At My London Big Issue pitch ...

I nicknamed him "Mr. Bushmeat."

G'Day Monty!

Good to hear you made Melbourne and my

home state. Things going well in New York

but the work in America is crazy with limited

industrial relations. Anyway a bit of Victorian

state trivia that you may find completely un-

interesting - Ballarat (my home town) was

once a prime candidate for the Australian

capital (unfortunately Canberra beat us on

the boredom stakes) - does that make you

want to visit? You still have my email

right? Catchya, Earl.

Nov. 29th, 2oo8.

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