KEEPUP spoke to three families whose connection to an A-Leagues star began through a kit exchange, with each interaction revealing a profound new way for kits to evoke powerful memories, create new fans, and immortalise a moment in time.
The power of a football jersey.
Kit culture is a global phenomenon, but it is also so much more than that. It represents something. To children, they inspire.
They also have the power to change lives, as Brandon O’Neill, Scott Jamieson and Jake Brimmer have found out.
O’Neill’s match-worn kit becomes football-mad Ruby’s ‘surgery shirt’
When Brandon O’Neill was a child, he suffered from Perthes disease. Impacting children aged three to 11, blood supply to the top of the thigh bone is disrupted, which causes deterioration in the bone as well as pain and limited movement in the hips.
O’Neill was wheelchair-bound by Perthes in his formative years. He went on to become an A-Leagues star and a Socceroo.
In 2018, whilst playing for Sydney FC, he provided inspiration to football-mad Ruby Mulhearn, then seven years old and experiencing the exact same hardships due to the rare disease.
O’Neill travelled to Suncorp Stadium to take on Brisbane Roar. Prior to the game he had spoken to Rhiannon Mulhearn, Ruby’s mum, who hoped for a brief interaction between O’Neill and her daughter after the game.
“All we thought was that maybe afterwards he’d give a wave,” Mulhearn recalled.
After the game he came over to Ruby, and he made her and us feel like we were the only people in the stadium.
“He took so much time, he would have stood there for hours longer if we continued talking to him…he was so attentive, and genuinely interested in her journey and her surgery, how she was feeling.
“He really connected with her. He said he’d been down the path of knowing what it was like, he’d been in a wheelchair for 12 months, and it does get better – which was really important for her.
“We hadn’t initiated or hinted at anything, but off his own back – literally – he offered Ruby his game shirt. She was a little bit star struck and didn’t know what to do, but my husband was like: ‘Oh my god, take it!’
“She was a little bit in awe that this guy was handing her his sweaty shirt – but then, we washed it, and it was hanging in her room, pride of place.
“When she had her second surgery 12 months later to get the hardware removed, she actually wore his shirt into theatre.”
Ruby is now 11 years old. O’Neill’s shirt sits in the top of her cupboard along with the rest of the items she holds dear.
Her mum speaks to KEEPUP from the car after dropping Ruby off at football training, in the midst of her third season playing the game.
“It made a difficult time so much easier and better,” Mulhearn said. “It was such an inspiration for her to be able to see there is a life after this process, and you can still go on and achieve pretty big things even if right now things seem pretty tough.
“You might be in a wheelchair and you’re not allowed to run and jump – but there’s a person out there running full speed and scoring goals.
“Now her restrictions have been lifted, so she’s actually playing football herself.”
Mulhearn added: “There’s still an unknown for her, and what the future holds, and what surgery she’ll need next.
But she said already she’s kept the shirt safe, so that will be her surgery shirt.
A touching gesture from Jamo inspires City super-fan’s dream of becoming future club captain
“He often says it was the best day of his life, that he’ll never forget it.”
Sometimes, the smallest of gestures from an A-Leagues star can have a profound impact on the life of a young fan.
Take Scott Jamieson, for example, whose interaction with Hamish Dreger (now 10 years old), and his mum Natasha at a Melbourne City game, made the Dreger family of four City fans for life.
Hamish is severely deaf; during the City warmup, Jamieson caught sight of Hamish and Natasha signing to one another in Auslan – the majority sign language for deaf people in Australia.
Jamieson went over to give Hamish his training jacket.
“He then went and asked one of the City staff how to sign: ‘How are you?’ in Auslan,” Natasha Dreger recalled to KEEPUP.
“So at the end of the game, he was signing to Hamish, which I was just amazed by, that he took that trouble to do that. He goes (to me): ‘Have I got that right?’ And I said: ‘Yeah, you did.’ He said: ‘Good, because I got them to look it up for me!’
“Then he gave Hamish his game shirt, so he ended up with two which is amazing.”
The Dreger family of four had been to one A-League Men’s game prior: a Melbourne Victory home fixture. They were unsure which side of the Melbourne divide to devote their loyalty.
“Then Jamieson came over and gave Hamish his shirts,” Drager said. “And we thought: ‘That’s it, it’s Melbourne City’ – and went to sign up as members, all four of us. That made our decision.”
Whilst it was the interaction between young fan and A-Leagues star which sealed a family’s love for the club, it’s the physical mementos gifted to Hamish on that day that keep the memory fresh in the mind of a young City fan whose admiration for his club’s captain has no bounds as a result.
“He often says it was the best day of his life, that he’ll never forget it,” Dreger said. “He’s taken a real interest in Scott Jamieson and Melbourne City since then, I guess because it was so personal.
“Obviously getting those items of clothing was a big deal for a little fan that loves football, but I think the extra bit was Scott using the Auslan. A lot of people are a bit hesitant to communicate with someone who is deaf, especially if you don’t know any Auslan.
“But from what I can see from Hamish, and speaking with other people in the deaf community, just any kind of effort to make that communication is huge for them. So I think that really sort of sealed the deal for him.
“One of the things when you’re a parent and you have a child who is deaf, is you worry about how they’re going to be accepted into the world. It’s always in the back of your mind. So when you hear things like what Scott did, (I thought): ‘Wow, things are going to be okay, the world can be a nice place.’ It gives you a good feeling.
“Hamish has been playing soccer since he could walk – that interaction made a real difference in how he plays and interacts in his own games. Since then he really watches Scott in everything. He observes how if one of the players is getting frustrated with the referee Scott will go calm them down, and how he goes over to the opposition and shakes hands.
“I see that in Hamish. I commented on that to him once and he said: ‘Yeah, well I’ve got to be the captain of Melbourne City one day. I’ve got to start practising!’”
Dreger says her son wears Jamieson’s kit from time to time, although he has some considerable growing to do before it fits.
Hamish, however, has found a creative way to ensure the kit comes with him wherever he goes.
Jamieson’s name, number and City crest are printed on Hamish’s cochlear implant, which helps him to hear.
“You can get stickers to put on them. There’s a guy in the UK that makes them, usually he just has set designs but he will do custom designs,” Dreger said.
“In the UK he does a lot of football things – but he’s never had a request for an Australian team before. He was up to the challenge of designing that for Hamish.
“He used to change the stickers quite regularly, every month or something, a lot of kids like to decorate their cochlear and make them stand out – but no, he’s not changing that any time soon!”
‘Everything you do on and off the pitch, you’ve got to set an example for these young footballers’
The admiration between fans and players is a two-way street. When one meets the other, the former comes away with a memory to cherish of an interaction with a player who, when out on the park for their A-Leagues club, can appear larger than life.
For the latter, the experience of said interaction can be just as impactful.
Early in the off-season Melbourne Victory star Jake Brimmer pulled up to a local park for a running session.
Near the end of his run, his attention was caught by starry-eyed Archie Morrison, nine years old and a Victory superfan.
“As he ran past Archie’s eyes lit up,” recalled Archie’s dad, Scott Morrison. “He put his hand over his mouth in shock.
“Jake stopped, took his earphones out and said g’day. Archie was over the moon. He had a little chat with him, then Archie said: ‘I’m a big Melbourne Victory fan and you’re my favourite player.’ Jake said: ‘Oh really? Wait there.’ He ran to his car, grabbed a shirt out and brought it over, signed it and got a photo with him.
“Archie took the shirt to school and did show and tell with it. His teacher sent us a message saying he talked about it, got up in front of the class and told the story about the interaction. He’s got the shirt pinned up on his wall now, next to his bed.
“I said to a few people that for Jake to stop what he was doing, a lot of people would wave and say hi, and that would be it. But to actually stop and have a chat with him and then jump the fence, run back to his car and get a shirt, it was pretty good of him.”
One month after the interaction, Brimmer and Victory took on Manchester United at the MCG.
Brimmer was one of the many Victory players who were captured in the aftermath of the game loitering outside the United change rooms, hoping to swap kits with the Premier League stars.
Brimmer, a Liverpool youth product, played against Marcus Rashford at U18 level, and was delighted to add the English International’s shirt to his collection of match worn kits, along with Cesc Fabregas and Andres Iniesta’s.
Rashford passes his kit to Brimmer. Brimmer hands a kit of his own to young Archie Morrison. The memories attached to both exchanges are the same.
“That was one of the main reasons why I quickly thought off the top of my head (to give Archie my shirt) when I finished my run,” Brimmer told KEEPUP.
“This kid had just come up to me and asked to get a photo… when I was growing up, I supported Victory when I was young, my mum and dad were members, I just remember idolising players at Victory. I remember after games trying to get shirts, trying to get balls that they (give out).
“It’s a special moment for that kid, it’s a moment he will remember but also for me, I don’t think of myself as that sort of (player)… I don’t believe anyone is better than anyone else, so to give that kid something to remember forever (was) special for him, and I’m glad and happy for him.
“I think it gives them that thought of: ‘I want to be like him, I want to become that person that gives away tops and people look up to me.’
Everything you do on and off the pitch, you’ve got to set an example for these young footballers. That’s our job to do. I’m excited and happy to be a part of that kid’s day and the journey he’ll go on now which is hopefully very special as well.
Featured image credit: Scott Morrison / Nick D’Urbano.
