Normally it’s quite nerve-wracking heading into a grand final for supporters, but this year John Mangos is feeling fairly confident.
The news presenter and veteran journalist has seen his Sydney Swans in this position before, seven times in his lifetime, for two premiership wins.
But despite the Swans having a shaky record in deciders, he thinks his team is in good stead.
A life member of the club, ambassador and compere of events at the SCG, John has never missed a home game in more than three decades.
He’ll be heading down to Melbourne like he has for previous grand finals, most recently in 2022, with his two teenage sons Kosta, 16, and Apollo, 14.
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he told Neos Kosmos.
“My kids have grown up, because of my connection with the footy club, around the players and they all know my kids and they’re lovely to my kids.
“They’ve had photos with every player over the last 10 years.”
Four generations of the Mangos family having cheered on the red and white, and it all began a century ago.
John’s papou came to Melbourne from Kastellorizo in the 1920s and together with his brothers they opened a cafe in South Melbourne called The Swan Cafe.
The Sydney Swans were originally South Melbourne Football Club, before relocating up north in the 80s.
“The café was a couple of 100 metres from the original South Melbourne Football Ground, and in those days, the players were not professional, they worked jobs so they only used to train on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
“In those days pubs in Melbourne used to close at 6pm, so there was nowhere to get food after training. So the South Melbourne players would go to my papou’s café.
“He instantly became a South Melbourne supporter.”
His papou’s brother Mihalis, his son Peter would also become the honorary club doctor for South Melbourne for more than 25 years.
So when John got involved with the club, when he moved to Sydney after a stint in Los Angeles, a lot of the old players like Brownlow medal winners Bobby Skilton, Peter Bedford and Barry Round, all thought John was the son of Dr Peter.
“They’d say to me, your dad stuck plenty of needles in me you know, painkillers to get me through the game.”
“I said look, it wasn’t my father, but it was my father’s first cousin but we were pretty close.
“So there’s kind of that nice Greek connection because South Melbourne in the twenties, thirties, forties, had a lot of Greeks.”
John finds its quite crazy how different generations of his family all somehow had connections to the Swans.
He also thinks it’s ironic that the old South Melbourne Football Ground where the Swans used to play is now the home ground for South Melbourne Hellas.
“So it’s like our DNA is intertwined, Greeks, Kazzies, South Melbourne and the Swans.”
