Shy janitor moonlights as sports maniac
The mornings are depressingly predictable: Serhy Zaborovsky packs several sandwiches into a bag, puts on an old coat, tightens the laces of his worn-out shoes and trundles off to a job as a janitor at Kyiv’s Zhulyany Airport. The man who emerges hours later has discarded the working-stiff routine and even his given names as if they were yesterday’s trash. Serhy Zaborovsky is done for the day. The afternoon and evening belong to his alter ego Paramon, also known as Superfan.
If anywhere in the city a soccer ball is kicked, a tennis ball swatted, a pool length swum or a punch thrown in the course of an organized competition, chances are high that Paramon is there. For other fans, sports serves as a diversion. For a man who gets no surprises from his broom each morning, the suspense riding on the clash of wills and skills is not a hobby but a calling.
The 43-year-old Paramon has no wife, no kids. The ballplayers are his family, the stadiums his home. ‘It’s my release,’ he says simply.
Informally crowned as Ukraine’s number one sports fan, Paramon has lifetime free passes to spectacles that few janitors attend. Last night, it was the hugely popular ‘no-holds-barred’ fights at the Palace of Sport. Tomorrow, it will be his beloved Dynamo against Juventus at the Olympic Stadium.
‘I have already forgotten how much tickets cost,’ he says. But Paramon, who often tries to get to several events on the same day, is just as likely to turn up at a junior handball tournament as at a sold-out extravaganza. On a recent afternoon, he could be found at a Central Army Sports Club – Tavria Simferopol soccer match that determined which one of the second-rate teams made it to the round of eight in the Ukraine Cup. And so what if there was no TV coverage, so what if half of the fewer than 1,000 fans in the stands were recruits herded there in formation? Paramon had missed soccer over the winter; he wanted to be there.
Paramon was never an athlete. And he is not the sort of fan who treats sport as an intellectual puzzle to be solved with diagrams and statistics.
For this shy man who tends to speak in slow monosyllables, sport is about drama and passion sufficient to transform him into a mob-inciting maniac.
This is a man who speaks softly and carries a big drum, which he thumps while pacing the sidelines during Dynamo matches.
The drum’s sound is as remarkable as its size, and Paramon uses it to good effect as he cheers for his hometown heroes, perturbs opponents and warms up the crowd. He got so boisterous at the Dynamo-Newcastle showdown last fall that the police who ring the stands dragged him away. A grievous error on the part of the cops, insists the Superfan.
It probably was a mistake caused by ignorance. For Paramon enjoys not only the sanction of Dynamo management but the love of sports fans over the city.
The appearance of his short, plump figure usually evokes cheers and jokes from fans, players and security guards. If his bushy mustache and child-like eyes capped by long, curved lashes aren’t there, they are missed. ‘I wish there were more Paramons around,’ says noted sportswriter Oleksandr Lipenko.
Paramon has cheered for Dynamo for 31 years, and can remember that the first game he ever saw was against the Glasgow Celtic. His nickname was bestowed on him in the 1970s by another fan, and he is still wondering about its origin.
For decades, the funny moniker was the only fruit of his passion. Only now that Dynamo has been turned into a fully professional franchise have material rewards started trickling in. The club has provided Paramon with a snazzy Adidas uniform emblazoned, naturally, with the words ‘Paramon’ and ‘Superfan.’ The team has also provided occasional handouts of cash for its volunteer cheerleader and mascot.
Paramon’s greatest thrill came two weeks ago when he accompanied Dynamo to Turin, Italy for the away leg of its Champions Cup quarterfinal against Juventus. ‘It was the first foreign trip in my 43 years of life,’ marvels Paramon as he shows off a photo taken in Turin of him and former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, Dynamo’s biggest booster.
On second thought, make that second-biggest.
