Wee Papa’s Big Adventure

Hibernian’s Australian-Greek full-back Stacey Papadopoulos, the number five with streaks of pink hair, talks through a five-country football odyssey and a title-winning season. She recounts a pre-season trip to Florida where the game was cancelled by the weather and she and Linzi Taylor spent bus journeys scanning every body of water for alligators, and identifies a 3-0 win at Rangers before the Christmas break as the moment the squad realised they could beat anybody. The title celebrations at Easter Road were not helped by a flight to America the following morning. Her route took in Kelen SC in Hungary during peak Covid, junior college football at Arizona Western, Doxa in Greece and Western United back home. Edinburgh, she says, reminds her of Melbourne, and she credits her partner Allie Rossi with pulling her out of her comfort zone.