GEORGIOS Sarris, to borrow from the words of Stevie Wonder, is very superstitious. Hamilton’s Greek central defender celebrates his 28th birthday tomorrow as Celtic come to the Superseal Stadium and he has good reason to hope that the writing might just be on the wall for the Premiership champions and their invincible domestic record under Brendan Rodgers.
Sarris, you see, was born on the eighth day of the eighth month back in 1989, and consequently wears the No 89 jersey at Accies. What better time for him to notch the winning goal and spark a sensational double celebration than in the 89th minute?
“I hope I will be celebrating my birthday on Friday, you need to be positive,” said Sarris. “I was born on 8-9-89, so two 89s. So I hope that is fate, I hope it is an 89th minute winner.
“I am superstitious - unfortunately, “ he added. “I’ve been a positive person my whole life. In games that nobody believes that you can take something, I’m one of the first guys that says ‘no we can win’. Whether it is Celtic or another team you need to be positive.
“If in football you don’t believe in yourself, you don’t believe in your team-mates, your gaffer, the history of your team then you can’t play football. I pray before every training session and game because I believe so much in God. I ask him for all the players to be healthy and to be lucky. But you don’t have to ask to be strong, you need to do that yourself.”
Sarris is loving life in Scotland, with a baby born here and a big fat Greek wedding - replete with obligatory smashing of plates - to come this summer. He is even adjusting to the vagaries of the Scottish dialect and climate.
“Alex D’Acol was here and we had been together at AEK, then Giannis Skondras came and Alex Gogic, who I had known for around ten years as his father was my gaffer in Greece,” he said. “I’d had a really bad season in Turkey because no-one spoke English, I had to learn some words in Turkish. So for me it was much easier to settle in here in this team. Then my wife was pregnant in Scotland and we have a baby, he’s a Scottish baby, and it’s all good.
“The first day I came here I thought it was a completely different language,” he said. “When I went on holiday to Greece and then went to Spain, I heard again the accent and I knew I had to learn Scots again.
“When I go back to Greece now, I say it’s too warm. In Turkey it was minus 29 in December but you didn’t feel the cold so much, here in Scotland it’s so windy and it is rains you feel it in your bones.”
As ever Hamilton are confounding the critics, sitting in fourth place despite being widely tipped yet again to be bottom of the pile. “We need to thank the people who say we’ll finish bottom because it’s good when you prove people wrong,” said Sarris.
“Last season was the same, everybody thought we’d be relegated but we are still here and we are going to stay here.”
So what, pray tell, does one eat at a Greek birthday celebration? “Three points,” says Sarris, before he walks off with a smile. Very superstitious indeed.
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