AFL Draft 2015: Gach Nyuon’s long journey from Africa to potential AFL draftee
GACH Nyuon has more than 73 brothers and sisters, and is among four young men who have taken refuge in playing AFL, writes Sam Landsberger.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
FOUR boys from Sudanese families have trekked through war-torn countries and survived refugee camps before arriving in Australia and falling in love with footy.
One saw an attempted kidnapping of his baby brother and another has more than 70 siblings, owing to his assasinated father’s 12 wives.
SAM LANDSBERGER talks to four young men who have taken refuge in the AFL ahead of this year’s national draft.
GACH NYUON
SUDANESE refugee Gach Nyuon has more than 73 brothers and sisters.
His mother’s husband, William Nyuon Bany, had 12 wives and was assassinated in 1996, before Gach was born.
Nyuon and his family fled war-torn Sudan when he was 10 months old and survived refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya before escaping to Melbourne when he was seven.
He lives with him mother, three brothers and one sister in Keysborough and has a step mum in Doveton, a step mum and two brothers in Perth and a step mum, brother and sister in South Australia.
The rest of his family are spread throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, Sudan and other countries.
“My dad had 12 wives. I just know he had over 73 kids but I only know the ones in Australia,” Nyuon said.
Bany, who Gach classifies as his father, was a southern Sudanese politician, a high-ranking military officer in The Sudan People’s Liberation Army and a patriot who pushed for freedom.
On Friday, Nyuon was again the dominant ruckman in Vic Country’s clean-sweep of the under-18 championship as his raw football journey continued to build momentum.
On Saturday, Nyuon became the first Sudanese talent to win Under-18 All-Australian selection 20 years after the championships began.
“No doubt this is a glimpse into the future of the AFL,” AFL talent boss Kevin Sheehan noted.
It is a journey incomprehensible to teammates and the football world but one suddenly on track for the biggest stage.
“At the start of the year I would have said he was a mile off it,” an AFL recruiter told the Herald Sun.
“But his improvement has been amazing. He could be the best ruck prospect in the draft.”
At 201cm and 81kg, Nyuon can run fast, leap high and kick the ball well for a big bloke.
He says he struggles against the bigger bodies, but is working hard in the gym and poring over game edits to help his footy IQ.
He has been interviewed by every AFL club and works in the offices of his TAC Cup club Dandenong Stingrays, helping organise footy clinics and registering kids for Auskick.
“He used to take shortcuts and players would give it to him, but (since October) he’s turned his life around in so many ways,” Stingrays talent manager Mark Wheeler said.
Nyuon would sometimes miss sessions as he battled cultural differences. Now, the excuses are gone as Nyuon knows to get drafted “You have to tick all the right boxes off the field”.
If he’s running a couple of minutes late he will text Wheeler.
“He’s gone to the next level with taking contested marks and knowing where to run and when to fall behind the footy,” Wheeler said.
“With 3-4 years in the weights room he’s going to be a scary unit — he will sit on blokes heads.
“I think he’s gone past a rookie chance. He loves his family, he’s always going to miss them. Whoever gets him is going to sign up 100 new memberships pretty quick.”
Teammate Rhys Mathieson dominated clearances as Country beat South Australia last week.
Afterwards the grunt midfielder’s reasoning was: “When you’ve got Gach Nyuon hitting it down your throat — he’s probably been the best ruckman in the carnival — you’re going to get first use”.
But while Nyuon goes to bed dreaming of an AFL career, he remembers life Africa.
Nyuon left Ethiopia when he was four with memories of a cafe his mum owned, serving coffee and African food, shining brightest.
“I used to go there in the mornings, but whenever I didn’t brush my teeth she would tell me to go back home,” he said.
“Sometimes I’d just go out the back and do it.”
He recalls a watchman armed with a large gun protecting about 10 of his family while living in a two-bedroom apartment in Kenya.
“It didn’t matter in Africa, as long as everyone could fit,” he said.
There was a milk bar in the building safe for Nyuon to shop at, and he would fetch butter for his mum and lollies for the kids.
He would also visit the local river with siblings and cousins to splash around in and eat mangos.
He says he moved to escape the civil war, where millions of Sudanese were starved to death.
Nyuon’s mum kept details of the terror scarce.
“I’ve never seen war or been in war. Mum kept us far away from it, she looked after us pretty well,” he said.
Nyuon’s first memories of Australia — and AFL — are also vivid.
“When I got here my uncle picked me up from the airport,” he said,
“It was a pretty cool car trip. We saw all the lights and going over the Westgate Bridge and under the tunnel, it was pretty exciting.”
Nyuon gave up soccer for footy just three years ago and his love for the game was born while watching television.
“I was flicking through the channels Andrew Lovett caught my eye, so I picked Essendon because I just loved the way he played,” Nyuon said.
“He was a superstar. Really quick and an exciting player, just taking the game on.”
Nyuon has played less than 40 games in his life but recruiters say there is a noticeable improvement every time he crosses the white line.
His mum attended her first game this year, when Nyuon played ruck as the AFL-AIS Academy fell to a Northern Blues side filled with Carlton players including Andrew Walker.
“She was going off in the crowd, banging the seats and stuff,” Nyuon said.
“I could hear my little brother from the field and mum’s been to a few games since. She goes for Collingwood.”
MAIBOR CHOL
MAIBOR Chol and his baby brother were playing tigee in the streets of Egypt when the racism and violence scarring their family came to a flashpoint.
A stranger emerged from the shadows and snatched Chol’s brother, leaving the Sudanese family petrified.
Chol remembers sprinting inside and alerting his parents to the kidnapper, who arrived armed with a stick and two metal bars.
Chol, who was just seven, tried to help but was too small and his parents eventually defused the situation.
After the confronting episode the Chols locked themselves inside their house for two days and ultimately the family of eight fled to Brisbane.
When Maibor was two, his family boarded a ship out of war-torn Sudan and headed to Egypt.
He remembers dining out on seafood on the vessel but the destination “wasn’t a positive place to stay”.
“It was really, really scary,” Chol said of the two years in Egypt.
“A lot of negativity and racism to black people. Mum and dad were finding it really tough and it was really hard for my family. To hear what happened to them, I feel really sorry for them.
“But they just put their head up high and worked really hard to try and get our lives back together.”
Chol, 18, has finished representing Queensland in the under-18 national carnival.
After arriving in Brisbane in 2005, he took up Australian rules six years ago and played in a winning school final on the Gabba that year.
He immediately fell in love with the game’s camaraderie and capacity to show off his raw athleticism.
After starting in the ruck, Chol is developing his craft as a midfielder.
“I really enjoy the running, the marking and taking the really big marks,” he said.
“I love taking the big marks, I love it. I took one on Saturday against Tassie which I thought was a really good mark.
“I climbed over one bloke — he was set up perfectly — and I took off.”
The man who drew Chol to the sport’s scaling heights was Sydney champion Adam Goodes.
Chol remembers watching Goodes on television and has since looked up to the Indigenous superstar.
“He just caught me with the way he played,” Chol said.
“The way he leads out on the field, I thought it was brilliant so I followed the Swans and Adam Goodes will always be my idol.”
Chol has since signed his younger brother up to Auskick and his dad is a regular in the stands on game day.
He wants his brother to get the hang of the game and, in a dream world, follow him to the AFL.
The success of North Melbourne’s Majak Daw and Swan Aliir Aliir — fellow Sudanese players — showed Chol his vision was no pipedream.
“The first time I heard of Majak Daw it gave me a lot of confidence,” he said.
“It showed me this sport is not only built for Australian kids, but we can have multicultural players coming through.
“It gave me that little bit of motivation to work even harder and get up there with them as well.”
Chol knows he has a lot of improvement left but is committed to working hard at the game he loves.
“Footy means the world to me,” he said.
“My family would be proud of me (if I got drafted) and to help them out with their lives would be great.
“My mum would be in tears, dad would be really proud and even a couple of the family back in Africa would be really proud.
“But life is just really good now. Everything is settled, there’s no racism around here and everyone gets treated in the right way. I love it here.”
PATRICK TABAN
“THIS is your chance,” Rose Taban told son Patrick and her six other children when they arrived in Australia.
“Now you are in the white world. Now you are free.”
Rose’s father was killed when she was 11 and Patrick was born in a refugee camp in Uganda, where he lived for about eight years.
Rose had two children in Sudan, fled during the civil war and had five more in Uganda.
“Safer environment, better education and a better future,” is Patrick’s answer to why they moved.
“Africa is free, but Australia is a good place to live and I’m just lucky to be here.”
Living in Darwin, Patrick, 17, says the heat is just like Africa but there are no Sherrins back home.
It is partly why when he has returned he prefers to stay in the village rather than the city, so he can share his stories with his family.
“We didn’t have much, but enough to survive,” he said.
“We don’t need money and there’s no power, no lights or anything so it’s a different environment.
“The houses ae made out of bricks and mud. It looks a bit weird, but it’s actually a good place to live. Nice and cool.”
Taban wants to play AFL. The rebounding defender says he has to improve his fitness, lose weight and gain muscle. But he also knows he can play.
“I can run a fair bit and I can tackle hard,” he said.
“I’ve got height, I can jump and I’ve got a pretty decent leg — left and right.”
In his second senior game, Taban showed a glimpse when he made a 50m dash with the ball and shrugged off two tackles.
It was a long time coming. Taban was introduced to the game in 2008 when a neighbour invited him for a kick.
“I seemed to like it so I thought, ‘Why not? Let’s give this a go’,” Taban said.
“I went to play but I was too young, so I just kept training and training and trying to work on my improvements until I could. I’ve never looked back.”
REUBEN WILLIAM
REUBEN William doesn’t need a visual cue to name any player in the AFL.
Quizzed last week, the footy fanatic reeled off the names of Mitch Wallis, Allen Christensen, Luke McGuane and Jack Riewoldt after being given their club and jumper number.
William is obsessed with AFL fantasy games and barracks for North Melbourne when Andrew Swallow plays and Port Adelaide if Brad Ebert and Ollie Wines are on the field — but only when they aren’t up against his Brisbane Lions.
He has even pulled the Lions’ jumper on four times this year, picked to play in the club’s reserves.
But it is a different story when remembering his first four years, spent growing up in a refugee camp in Kenya.
“Luckily, there’s a few photos from when we were on the bus from a refugee camp to the airport,” William said.
“There was my older sister holding me and my other sister holding my younger brother and my mum there.
“Our whole family was at the back of the bus. We moved to escape the turmoil and the war back there. It’s a bit better now.”
William’s only other memories are the taste of his first sip of Coke in Nayrobi and a big fence spanning as far as he could see in the camp.
“There were a couple of huts inside and we were just waiting for papers to go through to get that notification you’ve been approved and you can go,” he said.
“You know when you’re there you can’t be too critical of what you have because it’s probably very scarce.”
Since arriving in Brisbane via Darwin in 2002, William has scarcely put a foot wrong on the footy field.
He ditched soccer and rugby at 14 to focus on his skills and has been a crucial member of Queensland’s under-18 carnival.
Last week he trailed only close mate and Lions academy gun Ben Keays in disposals, gathering 23 as “we got the W” against Northern Territory.
The sports science university student played in two premierships with his brother growing up and now wants Ben Keays to be able to pick him in SuperCoach next year.
“I’m a footy fanatic. I know everything from who wears No.1 for Brisbane to most teams,” William said.
“Who’s three for Brisbane? That’s easy, Allen Christensen. Three for the Bulldogs?
“I’m not sure if it’s Wallis or (Jack) Macrae. Wait, it’s Wallis — because Jake Stringer is No.9 and Macrae is 11.”
Originally published as AFL Draft 2015: Gach Nyuon’s long journey from Africa to potential AFL draftee
‘Tricky’: AFL ban sparks furious debate
The suspension handed to Melbourne’s Steven May for a collision that was deemed not to be a bump has caused players to question what they can and can’t do.
Hawthorn’s hit list: Hawks vow to be ‘bold’ come trade time
Oscar Allen, Harley Reid … who else? The Hawks are on the hunt, according to president Andy Gowers, who opens up on aggression at the trade table, another bid as top Hawk, and more.