Posted by

Aaron Nielsen ,

April 29, 2014 Email

Aaron Nielsen



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@ENBSports

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My favourite television series, by far, has been the recent sports documentaries 30 for 30 that tells compelling stories in celebration of ESPN being a network for 30 years. I've been emotionally attached to every episode so far, be it stories of triumph, tragedy or humour. I also appreciate the greater awareness it has given me on each particular story. Being a huge sports fan and now forty years of age, these stories told have played a pivotal role in my life as much as it has for ESPN. Furthermore, ESPN's close relationship to each story gives the viewer a behind the scenes experience that you might not have had from watching the game or reading about the event. You would assume TSN, who has been on the air now 30 years themselves, could do comparable work on Canadian sporting events such as curling, the CFL and even the old Canadian Soccer League. 30 for 30 has a very strong, well known soccer documentary as part of the series called The Two Escobars about the lives of soccer player Andrés Escobar and drug lord Pablo Escobar, the intertwining of crime, soccer in their native Colombia, and the connections between the murders of both men. During this program they did a very good job explaining the atmosphere in Colombia at that time and allowed someone who didn't have any knowledge of the story a greater understanding of it's impact. It also had a deep connection to the 1994 World Cup in the United States and the story of Andres Escobar scoring an own goal against USA and later being found dead in his own country. Of course when it was announced that they would be expanding to 30 for 30 soccer, and include a number of documentaries, I was very much anticipating the series. So far, ESPN has shown 3 episodes, their key piece in the series a two hour documentary on the Hillsborough disaster and efforts for the victims to search for the truth. They’ve also shown a documentary on Maradona and Chile’s 1974 World Cup campaign during the Augusto Pinochet coup. They also have plans to show a documentary on the Ireland/Italy game in 1994, one on Mané Garrincha, 1950 Uruguay World cup team, Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles coming to England and finally one on the history of the World Cup trophy. I thought the Hillsborough documentary was well done and brought up a very important story, although as an outsider I did have some concerns with the piece. I began watching and being aware of soccer during the time of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster and the Heysel Stadium disaster four years prior. I was twelve in 1985 and attended a Toronto Catholic Junior High School with almost all my friends new Canadians from Italy, Portugal, Poland, and the Caribbean. I also lived in a very working class area of Toronto and spent as much time in my friends home as I did my own. With regards to soccer I was a complete outsider at the time as my family never really followed sports and through kids at school I started being aware of baseball and the Blue Jays and hockey and the Maple Leafs. I do remember one of my friends having a 1982 Italy World Cup poster, but also recall clearly another friend's mother almost forbidding an interest in soccer about it being "old world". While many of my friends might have only seen snow for a couple of years, they wore Toronto Maple Leaf hats and owned hockey sticks and we spent most of our afternoons playing ball hockey and even a couple of my friends at this time went on to play in the Juniors. Soccer in the 80's was despised and known for being provincial and working class; everything most new Canadians were trying to escape. I was not a new Canadian, and whose great uncle is Hap Day, a winner of seven Stanley Cups with the Leafs from 1932 to 1951, however, my biological father, who I have never met, is Irish. So when the Republic of Ireland made the 1990 World Cup my love, almost fantasy, for soccer began. It was the first time in my life I cheered for a team that had no chance of winning (never a Leafs fan myself) and I went out of my way to consume everything I could about the game. I quickly found out about hooliganism and standing terraces, and hearing from people who attended matches in England and elsewhere, it being one of the worst experiences they ever had in their lives. I also found about fans being separated and people dying at games, something that should never happen at a sporting event, something as a Canadian I just couldn’t comprehend. So Hillsborough’s circumstances also don't make sense to me, which I imagine is the same to most North Americans and unfortunately the documentary didn't make it any clearer. I think there is a story to be told, not a personal story but a general story. A story of how a sport once regarded with contempt is now the greatest form of sports entertainment in the world. When I would tell anybody I knew in the 90's that my favourite sport is soccer, I was basically laughed at. Now I can't come across a person without a English Premier League team they cheer for. Arguably, what Hillsbrough did was open people’s eyes about safety, forced stadiums to become all seaters, and to the possible dismay of all non-North Americans, led soccer down the path of what we regard as professional sport here. It’s almost fitting that 25 years later, Liverpool has come out of nowhere to close in on their first English Premier League title with the support of almost everybody in the world. As a close follower of the game, I no longer see soccer as a fantasy; it has become my reality. Toronto FC and MLS are my life. Canadians are playing NCAA, CIS, PDL, USL Pro NASL and NWSL soccer because they now have the opportunities to. People are attending soccer games at prices comparable to any place in the world and North Americans are watching more soccer games on television a week than anywhere else because they feel a need to. This is the North American soccer story and our connection and relation to the game is as valuable here as anywhere else. Although worth watching, unlike the original 30 for 30 series, the soccer series is not our North American stories but someone else’s story, and while interesting it continues to sell the belief that soccer is the world's game and not our own. Hopefully in 20 years time when ESPN decides to do a 50 for 50 soccer, soccer is well represented and my hope, but also truly what I think will be the case, that the stories included will be our own.