In the first in a series of guest columns by well-known Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, the official club website invited veteran Israeli journalist and television commentator Dan Margalit, a Maccabi fan since 1945
It's been 67 years or more since I was dragged off by a family friend, a dentist named Arye Rosenfeld, to the Maccabiah Stadium in North Tel Aviv to see Maccabi play. I have some vague memory of it being a match against a Hungarian side called MTK. And also the IFA Cup final that was never finished because a Beitar Tel Aviv player named Yom Tov (Mensharov) grabbed the Cup off the awards table and escaped from the stadium with it. I even got a chance to see a header by the legendary Natan Pantz before he was killed in 1947 in the battle of Jaffa during the Independence War. As you can see, I'm very old but very passionate.
Since then Maccabi Tel Aviv has been my home. My banner. An expression of my values. In a country where national loyalties are in decline, where it's more and more every man for himself, a fan's loyalty to the club is a value in and of itself. As such I have a great deal of respect for the supporters of every football club, but our club – Maccabi – is the very heart of football in Israel. I think back nostalgically to the great team of the 1950's, which was also called Maccabi Michael, when Shaya Glazer and Yossele Goldstein and Avraham Bendori, who are still alive, and others who aren't like Yitschak Shnior and Eli Fuchs, won the championship year after year. What a joy, the whole season we knew already who would win the title, and most years the IFA Cup too.
Since then there have been many other greats like Giora Spiegel and Aviv Nimni and foreign players like Sasha Ubarov and others: "Yellow on the rise – that's Maccabi"
But it's been years since we've seen that light. I admit it to you – it was in those dark years that I encouraged my granddaughters and my niece and nephew to go to the stadium every week to see the matches. In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in Kiryat Shmona and Beer Sheva. It's a matter of nurturing a sense of loyalty, that you don't abandon the wounded, whether friend or football club, on the battlefield of sport. It was an obligation to attend, not to abandon, and like I said, this had educational value. The same educational value of perseverance, of clenching your teeth and not giving up until the situation improved.
This year we are finally seeing that ray of light after many years of darkness. This is the year of the great hope. After losing a whole series of Derby matches, a sudden upsurge of draws, one after another, and even a victory and as my niece Yael would say – three straight Derby wins is even more fun than the championship, but that's not good enough for me. In my heart I want both.
Nothing's done and dusted yet. We mustn't get arrogant. Let's not count our chickens before they are hatched, but there is a spark of hope and we will persist in that hope as in a never-ending love. That's it, a never-ending love, forever.
Just do me one favour, three of the teams' players are Arab Israelis. There is a small group of supporters who pervert the words to an original Maccabi song and chant "No Arabs – no victims". True, there are Arabs involved in acts of terror, but it is our absolute obligation not to make generalisations and certainly not about those who wear the same yellow jersey as all the other players on our beloved team. Covering national policy as I do as a journalist, take it from me that such chants do great harm to the image of the country in the eyes of the world.
May the yellow light of Maccabi forever be on the rise. Hallelujah, Amen.
