When Maahi Patel ran onto Elsternwick Park on Saturday, he was the only player of Indian origin in the entire Big V Under 19 representative match. At just 17, in the middle of his VCE year, he was about to play one of the highest-level games of his life.
His team won by 40 points.
“It’s something I’ll remember and cherish forever,” he says.
Maahi was selected in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) Big V Under 19 team after being chosen from an initial squad of 45 as one of the best 22 young footballers in the entire VAFA competition. He found out on the Thursday. By Saturday morning, the excitement had fully kicked in. For the initiated, the Big V, established in 1925, is one of the most iconic and highly respected sporting jumpers in Australia.
“Rocking up to the ground, seeing the large crowd, it was just a really good feeling,” says Maahi.
The game itself was fast. Maahi says the skill level was a clear step above anything he had played before, with several VFL-listed players in the team who had already experienced football at elite levels.
“When everyone plays for their club, they’re the star of the team. But when you put 22 stars together, it’s all about adapting and fitting in — making sure everyone can have the impact they hope to have.”
For Maahi, the biggest moment was simply the first bounce. “The game was just a notch above. It was a continuous, fast-paced game from start to finish.”
His name actually tells the story of how he got here. His father Kartik Patel, who came to Melbourne from India in 1999 to study at Swinburne University, named his son after MS Dhoni — the legendary Indian cricket captain known to his fans simply as Mahi. It was a cricketing name for a boy who would grow up to love a very different sport.
Kartik embraced Australian life early, picking up Collingwood as his AFL team not long after arriving. As Maahi grew up, the pattern became cricket in summer and football in winter, starting with Auskick at the age of four. “Dad had almost embraced that Aussie culture,” Maahi says. “And I think it just carried over to me.”
He has been at Westbourne Grammar School in Melbourne’s west since prep and is now in Year 12, with final exams three or four months away. He is already thinking about university — commerce and finance interest him — but football is running alongside all of it at a serious level.
Maahi plays for Williamstown CYMS, where he has already represented the senior team at 17. He is also part of the North Melbourne Next Generation Academies pathway, the AFL’s program for multicultural players that provides extra training and development specifically designed to bridge the gap for kids who did not grow up with the game.
“The skills themselves — kicking, handballing, marking — are not too complex,” he says. “But footy is very fast and quite rough, and it’s about how to implement those skills under constant pressure. The program teaches you more than just football. It teaches you about nutrition, sleep, education — how to perform as optimally as possible.”
Maahi puts in around 20 hours a week during the season between club training, school football, Saturday games, gym work and running. In the off-season it climbs to 25 or 30 hours as he focuses on building strength. He still finds time for a social life — he is clear that balance is part of what keeps him on track. “When you’ve got school, footy and a social life, it keeps things in balance and keeps you to a schedule.”
As the only Indian-origin player in Saturday’s Big V match, Maahi is aware of what his presence represents. But he is careful about how he frames it. “It’s not really a responsibility (of representing a community). It’s more of a privilege. On the field, when you put that jumper on, you’re all one team. The responsibility is more off the field — trying to encourage more kids from Indian backgrounds to pick up the game.”
His message to any young Indian Australian watching from the sidelines is simple. “Just continue pursuing the game. There are so many avenues and so many pathways.”
In five years, Maahi wants to be in the AFL. He says it quietly but without hesitation. “It’d be very rewarding to show my gratitude to everyone who has helped me — with a spot in the AFL.”
For a 17-year-old sitting his VCE exams and named after a cricket legend, that does not sound like too much to ask.
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