THE ASSYRIAN ATHLETIC CLUB

OF TORONTO

Proud Home of the Winged Bull Soccer Teams

In 1948, Aram Karam, team captain, placed Youra, 15, on his Levy Civilian soccer team, in the forward line. Aram, several years Youra's senior, was then already a top footballer and was, on January 28, 1952, dubbed "Iraq's Greatest Footballer" in The Iraq Times by Andrious Mama Jotyar, a local freelance contributor. During the same year, Youra also captained the Junior team of the R.A.F. Assyrian Employees' Club, which won the junior cup. Realizing Youra's soccer talent and potential, the Employees' Club then snatched him the next year for their center forward. Youra clerked for the R.A.F. and played soccer for the Employees' Club and the C.C. (Civil Cantonment) Select teams for the next several years.

Soccer Skill and Popularity

Although most of Habbaniya's Assyrian footballers were good players, Youra's progress was last and in his very first three years he out-shone most of them. He loved football and played the game with gusto. He was full of energy and worked hard for his team's victory, not his own. He was a constructive player, unselfish, flitting all over the field like a butterfly, collecting and distributing the ball, creating scoring chances for his fellow-forwards. And his constant moving about made him elusive to pin down.

Unlike Aram Karam's famous long-range cannonball shots, Youra's shots were short, and often neat and accurate. Even though he usually played as center-forward or at inside-right, Youra wasn't basically a scorer. He moved between the forward and the defense lines, pursuing and retrieving the ball and feeding the scorers. He would often pass the ball to a better-placed teammate and even in the penalty box rather than take a chance on netting it himself.

Youra had a small but agile body. Although only 5'4" tall, he sometimes beat taller opponents to a header, the ability of which, he said, he had learned by constant practice -- leaping for and heading clothes lines in the Cantonment! Because of his small size, he was sometimes bullied by bigger opponents. But Youra's small body was a live wire, sparking with energy and slippery as an eel!

"Don't you get exhausted running around so much?" I once asked him.
"No!" he replied emphatically. "I tire more when I am waiting for the ball than when I am playing with it."