Rising From the Sidelines- An Interview with Ezra Aaron

On the 9th of February 2022, Ezra Aaron tore his anterior cruciate ligament playing in a game for his school, ruling him out of the Maccabiah Games in Israel in the summer and a whole year of football. This season, he signed for the Wealdstone FC U23s. This is the story of his incredible comeback.

Prior to his injury, Ezra won an international football cap playing for the Independent Schools Football Association’s national team for the age group above him in an International match against Scotland at the Toryglen Football Centre adjacent to Hampden Park in Glasgow.

After coming back from his injury and following his A-Levels last summer, Ezra was asked to play for semi-professional clubs youth teams including St Albans and Beaconsfield He also spent 7 weeks in Israel playing with a number of clubs such as like Hapoel Marmorek men’s team and Hapoel Ramat Gan’s under 19s. At Marmorek, who are based in Rehovot, Ezra played alongside a number of players from Hapoel Jerusalem, a Ligat Ha’al (Israeli Premier League) club. Due to issues relating to youth football eligibility and citizenship he didn’t sign for an Israeli side.

In England, Ezra has played for London Lions since he was 6 years old, winning multiple league and cups, including being part of the only Jewish youth team to have ever won any FA County Cup (they won 3 times) and scoring 7 goals in the FA Youth Cup run which culminated with an away tie at League One MK Dons’ 30 000 seat stadium.

His first game back from injury was for the Lions senior team before joining National League Wealdstone’s under 23 team this season. He hopes to train with Wealdstone’s first team and maybe have the opportunity of making Wealdstone’s matchday squad and play in the National League, just one level below League 2.

In his time playing for Lions, Ezra said that there have been some antisemitic taunts made against the team by opposing players, coaches and fans.

When playing in Israel he saw some teammates wearing tefillin and praying before training and then changing into army uniform as they had to report for national military service afterwards.