MY FOOTBALL: where it all began

Football, it truly is the world game. The connection between fans and their team, a sense of feeling connected within a family of people all over the world, people who don't even know you exist but share your same joy and passion through the same team you follow. The joy experienced by billions around the world when someone scores the match winning goal or makes that last minute goal line save. The roar of the crowd that shows the level of passion people reach together as a whole through football. The passion that allows everybody to enjoy their team with others who have that exact same passion. All of the emotion that football brings to people all over the world and how it links billions together no matter who they are or where they're from is what makes football the beautiful game.

This is why I wanted to be apart of football.

Growing up I did taekwondo for as long as I could remember and was always heavily involved in it. I participated in the sport for over a decade and won countless Victorian state titles and I had three national titles by the age of 11. I represented Victoria at the National level and competed in Adelaide and won a gold to allow me to qualify for the world championships the next year in 2015. But all this wasn't enough for me. What I wanted most was to play football.

In 2013, I made my school football first team and I was the only player who had never played for a football club outside of school in my life. This was such a special moment to me at the time and it really made me eager to play football for a club outside of school. That year I was a blue belt in taekwondo (which was two belts away from reaching my black belt) and I begged my Dad to take me to a team to play but he said no. This shook me as a kid because my Dad is the biggest football fan I know to this day and he played when he was younger too. My Dad did not want me to quit taekwondo as I was at my second club and very close to getting my black belt, which seems pretty reasonable thinking back on it all now. Later on that year I went on to win my first two national titles in my home city of Melbourne at the age of 10.

In 2014, the FIFA World Cup in Brazil took place. Everyone at school watched all the games and came back to school the next day to play football and recreate the top bin goals and crazy tekkers we had seen these world class players perform. I would watch all of the games and be so amazed when I saw a country's level of passion and connectedness when someone would score a goal that lifted everyone up out of their seats to scream at the top their lungs, overflowing with happiness. The World Cup also took place during the school football team selection which made everyone want to make it onto the first team and show off their football abilities. At this point I had still never played for a club outside of school like everyone else, the only experience I had was playing at the park and being in the first team in 2013 for school. The World Cup definitely brought out the best of everyone as all we wanted to do was try mimic our favourite players. When the team was announced it was one of the greatest days of my life for a primary school kid. I had made the first team again in my last year at the school during the time football was the only thing the world ever knew and spoke of! I begged my Mum and Dad to allow me to play for a club outside of school every day but I got the same response as last time. Also, this time it was an even more stricter response when I asked, this was because I was towards the end of my red belt meaning that I was going for my black belt at the end of the year and I had training almost every day for state competitions in order to qualify for nationals in Adelaide. I was heartbroken that I wasn't allowed to play football. It seemed like such a simple ask at the time but I was not aware of the other opportunities I had and what they meant to fulfil.

In November of 2014 I flew to Adelaide to compete at nationals for taekwondo. It was so exciting to go on the plane and wear the team uniform through the airports (it made me feel like a famous athlete!). On the day of the tournament I had one event which was an individual poomsae event in the 10-11 year old age group. The tournament was in the Adelaide velodrome which felt like the world's biggest stage walking in as an 11 year old. They called my division over the loud microphone to martial and to this exact day I remember seeing 15 competitors in my division from all over the country who also wanted what I had been training hard for non-stop all year. All that was going through my head was that I was just going to be another number getting judged today then forgotten about, there was no way I was going to place in the top 5 let alone place in the top 3 and get a medal for Victoria. Once they placed us in order of competitors I remember being towards the middle sitting in between a Queenslander and a girl from Western Australia. Being in the middle of the division also made me lose hope because I thought they'd just see me then they would still have to judge another 5 or 6 people which had the chance to see everyone and make sure they didn't make the same mistakes. Once everyone had finally competed their two poomsae I remember thinking to myself I have no hope right now in a division this large, it was the biggest division of the whole competition. The officials made us line up and they said a speech about the efforts everyone put in and how we should all be extremely proud of ourselves today. Then came the announcement of the results. This was so terrifying! I recall standing there with my head looking down at the floor because I was so nervous about what was to come next. They called out third place who was a girl from Victoria, then they called out second who was a girl from New South Wales at this point I thought I hadn't placed at Nationals which made me so sad to think about. My Dad was watching on from the stands among lots of other people also thinking what I was thinking, that I didn't place. Then came the big reveal for who had come first, who was the champion of the whole country going to be? My head was still looking down at the floor with my heart beating at over 100 miles per hour, then the official announced "and our national champion today, from Victoria Charlotte Doukas" it didn't even click in my head till I heard my last name and looked up and my jaw dropped and heart stopped and I saw everyone from my team jumping and screaming. I was the national champion of Australia and I had won the biggest division of the competition! That group ended up being called the group of death that is how challenging it was.

When 2014 came to an end I had achieved many things from taekwondo and got my black belt too. Then I made the difficult decision to stop what I had been doing every day for so many years. When people found out that I had stopped taekwondo every single person was shook as this is what I was known for by everyone. However, deep down I knew this wasn't going to be the end.