Meet the grandad of Finnish street football
|Image: HWCF/Rebecca Corbett
“I can be everything”
61-year-old Finnish manager Ari Hulden has always had a nickname – ‘Huli’ – a shortened version of his surname. But recently, he’s got a new one – ‘Ukki’ – which means grandad in Finnish.
Huli started his footballing life as a player, representing Finland at the Homeless World Cup in Cape Town in 2006. Fast forward to 2022 and he is the manager of the Finnish street football team and jokes: “I’ve been player, coach, manager, cleaner. I have done everything!”
Going back to the mid noughties, Huli had just started to get help after living on the street in Helsinki and Stockholm for ten years.
But the feeling of being homeless didn’t end for Huli when he had accommodation. He explained: “my mind and my soul have been homeless all my life.”
The sense of being homeless started when Huli was a child. His parents struggled with alcohol addiction, meaning neither went to work. Then his dad left. When he was eleven, Huli and his sister were taken into care, living in one of Finland’s state youth centres.
“I was alone and scared. I wasn’t included. I was small, I was an orphan and poor.
“When I lost my mother [by being moved into care], that had a huge effect on me, I was afraid to trust everyone.
“I never found my identity. I was working but not going to school. Then I just didn’t want to go to work at all. I was emotionally homeless all the time. I didn’t know where I belonged.
“I found friends who were doing drugs and drinking, I wasn’t working or studying, and I did more and more drugs.”
Huli managed to secure jobs, but his struggles with addiction made it hard for him to keep them.
“I was a cook in a restaurant, and I worked in a kitchen on a boat going from Finland to Germany, but all the time I was doing drugs and drinking alcohol. In the end, I wasn’t interested in going to work anymore.”
“I lost my job and my wife said, ‘ok, you can go now’ and we got a divorce. I dropped to the same place I was when I was 11 and I was told, ‘your mother is not good for you’ and was taken into care.”
“I wasn’t loved, and I wasn’t cared for. Love is what I really need but I don’t know what it is. I am scared because I didn’t get it when I was child from my mother. That’s why I say I am homeless in my emotional life. I am a worrier. It’s very hard to find a place where I belong, and I am safe.”
After his marriage broke down, Huli was alone and questioning where his friends were. To fill the isolation and loneliness, he self-medicated with drugs.
“I never got rid of the negative emotions, so I started to take drugs, hard drugs and drink alcohol. I was homeless on the street for ten years. For four of those I was in Stockholm.”
Life on the street
Day to day life for Huli when he was living on the street followed a similar pattern.
“First thing was – can I eat something, where can I find something to eat? Or find drugs or something like that. I’d look in the rubbish. Find the night places, shelters, rooms, that sort of thing. I would spend the days walking, trying to find something to do.
“I just tried to survive every day. Inside, I was ashamed and guilty, but I tried to look like ‘oh never mind’. I tried to be cool. I thought if I can survive and no one asks, ‘oh what’s happened to you?’ [I’d done well]. I really needed [help], but I was really scared, that was my problem.”
A positive HIV diagnosis meant Huli accepted help for the first time.
“I got out of drugs and alcohol in 2001. A couple of years before I was infected with HIV, I was living on the street in Helsinki and more of the drug addicts were getting infected, there was an epidemic.”
The government in Helsinki tried to do something to tackle the HIV crisis and created support groups for people who were homeless, struggling with drug addiction and were HIV positive. This would prove to be a lifeline for Huli.
“They were trying to give people clean needles. Because we were outsiders other drug addicts didn’t want to share needles with us. Many people didn’t know about HIV and the infection – they were scared.
“For about 18 months people were contacting me and trying to help, but I was always scared and didn’t trust them.”
|Image: HWCF/Rebecca Corbett
One day, Huli was looking particularly tired and staff members realising he was sick managed to encourage him to get help.
“I decided to trust them, and I had the chance to go for treatment. They were very glad. Week by week they would say ‘oh great, you are clean!”
For one and a half years Huli spent time in a government rehabilitation programme. As part of it, he was given an apartment in East Helsinki, “I cannot call it home, but I have a house, I can live, I can survive.
“The area was growing all the time, with new factories and society was changing. There were lots of people with kids and young people and I started to play football. I really liked it, even though I wasn’t good!
“I have been clean for more than twenty years.”
Even though he was no longer addicted to drugs, years of addiction had left a lasting impact on Huli’s body.
“I have diabetes, [problems with my] blood pressure, many problems. But I am living.”
Huli & the Homeless World Cup
While he was getting support, Huli met someone who had been to the Homeless World Cup in Edinburgh. Seeing how much Huli was enjoying playing football he suggested he try out for the team.
Huli represented Finland at the Homeless World Cup in Cape Town in 2006. The team finished second place in the third tier of the competition.
“Cape Town was wonderful. We played in Nelson Mandela Square, and I saw teams from everywhere in the world for the first time: Sweden, Russia, Africa, the UK, Europe and everywhere! That feeling touched my heart very strongly. I thought I want to belong to this family.”
When he returned to Helsinki after the Homeless World Cup, Huli set up his own football team. The ‘Stray Dogs’ would train between 2-4 times a week all year round.
“I tried to do something so that other people can go too, for one time in their life and get that experience to meet people from all over the world.
“I put on a lot of Finnish tournaments. I am the father of Finnish homeless football, [he smiles, then adds], the grandfather.
“I have now recovered and every year, when I can, I help everyone. I like to meet people and give something back. I see my players from ten years ago in Helsinki and they are like: ‘I’m at university’, ‘I have work’, ‘I have a family’, and it’s wonderful.”
In response to the question whether he prefers being a manager, a coach, or a player, Huli smiles and says: “I can be everything”.
In June 2022, Huli turned 61. He laughs and adds, “Maybe [now] it’s good to be a manager! I’ve been training with guys, playing with guys. I’m not super-fast anymore, but I have a lot of experience.
“My life has changed, and football has been a big piece of my own progress and my integration into society. Football made me part of the world.”
“I’m very proud because when I go to the Finnish Football Association, I go ‘Hello, my name is Huli, I have homeless people, maybe we can help.’ I don’t go, ‘give us balls, give us money, give us shirts.’ I go ‘how can we help?’
“We belong to the football family.”
Since 2008, Huli has led a programme of volunteers who work with the Finnish Football Association. “About 70 days in the year, every stadium, at the games – national and qualifiers, we volunteer. And they sponsor us. It’s a great partnership. All through volunteering. Now they call us and ask us for help.
“I think it’s good for the stigma, people think homeless people always need something, but we say, ‘no, no, we are here to help.’
“Maybe we are homeless, but we are not hopeless.”
Find out more about Homeless Academy Association’s work in Finland and how they’re using football to end homelessness and tackle social isolation.
Words & Images: Rebecca Corbett. Some quotes have been edited for clarity.