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This one did warm the heart & to me It's a good story and a great gesture by the guy , sad to read about his folks though







Plastic surgeon Hanh Nguyen didn’t know how to speak English when he first arrived in Perth as a Vietnamese refugee, let alone what an Australian Rules football looked like.



It was 1980 and he was 14 at the time.



Dr Nguyen and his six brothers had been left to fend for themselves by starting a new life in WA after a shipwreck while fleeing a country still reeling from the Vietnam War cost the lives of his parents.



Now 49, the medical practitioner and University of WA graduate credits Australia’s national game for helping him fit into the local community.



That passion for AFL has prompted Nguyen to give back to the State competition by signing on as a sponsor of the WAFL colts’ competition for the first time as founder of health services provider RediMed.



Colts’ teams will compete for the RediMed Cup in 2015 under the inaugural partnership.



The sponsorship extends to the WA Football Commission’s youth and multicultural programs. The firm’s name is also attached to the WAFL talent academy, WA Amateur Football League, the WAFC High School Boys Cup, and the Integrated Football State Team for intellectually disabled players.



“When I first came to this country and you didn’t speak the language, the best way to integrate into society was sport,” Dr Nguyen said.



“I watched a lot of football – WAFL actually. I used to follow Subiaco when we were living in the area. I knew all the teams. That was long before the Eagles started to come.



“I miss with AFL the fact that before every stadium had seats, you could actually jump on the oval, you could kick the ball, you could sit on the grass. This is something that’s important for us to get back and support that level.”



The sponsorship deal has been struck in the wake of fast food giant McDonald’s signing on as the WAFL’s naming rights partner for the next three years.

Brilliant

And yet most posters want to give refugees a shovel to dig a trench

Great stuff.

Read this earlier today, great story showing the benefits of footy can have within our community.

In response to Singha's comments my initial emotion was maybe this is the case with 'most' posters as they rightly or wrongly feel threatened by refugees from certain places with certain religions arriving here. A thought then crossed my mind as to whether Aussies felt threatened by the arrival of Vietnamese refugees back then after the horrible war in that country. I'm was an infant back then so have no idea. Be interested to hear from those on this site that do recall this period. My understanding is a significant amount of Vietnamese refugees did end up in Oz and kind of left me wondering if we have changed with our behaviour over the years as to how we treat refugees or was the mindset generally the same in the 70's. No angle here from me, just interested to know. Will sign of by saying thanks to RediMed for getting behind local WA footy.

Singha wrote: And yet most posters want to give refugees a shovel to dig a trench

n.b.

Yes, sorry, not most. I take my comment back. I was a bit socially confused

Good stuff.

Great to see. However Unfortunately a lot of immigrants that come nowadays have no desire in understanding Australian culture. An strange amount just put the satalight dish up and watch Manchester United at all hours of the day. Worse some have ten kids and tell them not to work or associate with us infidels

Time For a Flag wrote: Great to see. However Unfortunately a lot of immigrants that come nowadays have no desire in understanding Australian culture. An strange amount just put the satalight dish up and watch Manchester United at all hours of the day. Worse some have ten kids and tell them not to work or associate with us infidels

You are seriously crap for this diatribe, have a look at the lists at every club and there are a lot of migrants, sons and grand sons of migrants. Most of them probably still speak their native tongue at home and observe their on traditions the same as the current batch of folk.

Keep your narrow minded and biased crap to where it deserves to be!

great story, sounds like a bloke I'd like to have a beer with and hear his stories. I started school in 78 and remember the Vietnamese kids starting to arrive, was too young to realise their background then. one of them, a fellow called Nguyen became a pretty good fast bowler, one of those erratic types which were particularly scary to face. he also became full back and was just one of the boys. there was no soccer for them to play at my school then.