A group of 50 international students, predominantly of Indian background, savored their first experience of Australian Rules football at the weekend, as guests of the Carlton Football Club for Saturday’s thrilling match with Fremantle at The Dome.
The first and second-year students from Melbourne’s Australian National Institute of Business and Technology took their places alongside members of the Carlton cheersquad at the Lockett end of the venue, and were promptly swept up in the excitement as the Blues overhauled the Dockers in a stirring final quarter fightback.
Among them was 24 year-old Iqbal Singh, who is currently combining his studies in hospitality management with part-time duties as a pizza chef in Footscray.
Iqbal hails from a small town known as Sujjon, located in the Nawanshahar district of the Punjab. He is one of more than 200 students from Nawanshahar currently studying in Melbourne, with upwards of 2000 students also here from the Jazandhar, Patiala and Moga areas.
“In India I was familiar with rugby, but I never saw the game of Australian Rules there. I’ve since seen Australian Rules football on television in Melbourne before, but this is the first time I’ve been to an actual game,” Iqbal said.
“The crowd is very noisy, the game is interesting and I like fast games like this rather than the cricket. A work colleague at Footscray told me all about Chris Judd and I’m aware also of your striker (Brendan Fevola).
“I would be interested in coming back for sure and I will support Carlton.”
Another second-year hospitality student, 24 year-old Jazzy Singh, formerly of India’s Amritsar region, said that at a time when members of the Indian community had suffered racist taunts in taxis or on railway stations, he and his fellow students were extremely grateful that Carlton had extended the hand of welcome.
As Jazzy said: “We are a part of Australia and everyone in Australia has a football team”.
“More of us will come back to Carlton now,” he said. “If it wasn’t for Carlton we’d either be watching television or playing soccer in the backyard of our house.”
Also in attendance as matchday guests of Carlton were the editors of Melbourne’s Indian newspapers, including Raj P. Dudeja, the Chief Editor of the Indian Voice. Raj believed that the club’s initiative would not only contribute to the forging of long-term links with the growing Indian community in Australia, but also lead to the promotion of the Carlton cause in India itself.
Prior to the match, Carlton President Richard Pratt acknowledged the presence of the Indian and Chinese student fraternity at The Dome, adding that while the students “had never seen the bounce of the oval ball, they’ll be cheering on the Blues nevertheless”.
