How Chaozhou's 'Jumping Chen' made history Down Under

Chen Shaoliang signs autographs for Chinese fans at a business luncheon in Shanghai on June 24, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Several soccer goal posts lined the sporting grounds at the International School of Macao, indicative of China's love affair with the world game.

But these posts were turned away from the action. Discarded and far from the minds of the footballers taking to the field.

In their place: four towering vertical posts at both ends. Two big and two small.

Another type of football – Australian Rules football – had taken over.

Chen Shaoliang, of the Guangzhou Scorpions Football Club, took the oval-shaped football in his hands – there are no hand-balls in this sport – and booted it through the middle of the two larger posts. It was just one of six goals for the 23-year-old that day, but one he believes helped change his life forever.

"I was playing the last game of the season and I kicked my fifth goal right in front of Port Adelaide staff," Chen says of the June 14, 2015 game.

Port Adelaide is a team in the Australian Football League – one of that country's biggest and most popular professional sporting codes. Officials and players were on one of many trips to China in their ongoing quest to promote the game to the huge – and profitable – Chinese market.

"After about half a year, they said ‘would you like to play for Port?' and I said, ‘Yes!'."

And with that, on March 17 this year, Chen became the first ever Chinese national to be recruited by an AFL club, joining Port Adelaide's academy squad. Last week, he was back visiting southern China as a Port Adelaide and AFL ambassador.

In reality, though, Chen first caught the eyes of AFL suitors four years ago, when his dream to one day play in the AFL was born in the most unlikely of places.

The son of two farmers, Chen grew up in the small city of Chaozhou, Guangdong province, but studied at the Guangzhou Sports University. He had never even seen an Australian football when, in July 2012, the AFL's newly-formed China Academy brought a training camp to Chen's school, on the hunt for some international talent.

They found Chen.

What the 184cm, 72kg basketballer obviously lacked in skill, he made up for in athleticism, recording a huge vertical leap of 87cm.

"They were so surprised by that," Chen says. A gross understatement.

During the then 19-year history of the AFL draft camp, which tests Australia's most talented young athletes, the highest-recorded vertical leap was 9cm shorter than Chen's.