My Way

by Moana Hope

  All this made my life seriously hectic. I was now working in quite a senior role in traffic management, but I still had to get up at 3 or 4 am every day to plan where my crews were going to be.

  Among the people in those crews were a number of my brothers and nephews, who I had hired so as to give them a chance to earn their own money and make a contribution to society. On top of that, I was trying to help Mum out as she battled various health problems.

  In all this time, I never wavered from my commitment to get myself fit enough to play at the highest level, though. I continued to train really hard after the 2013 season ended, although those gym sessions were interrupted for a few weeks by a trip to the United States with Tegan and a few other mates, which I had planned long before I decided to return to footy. But while I was there I ran pretty much every day. I was so driven to be part of that next exhibition match.

  Once I returned to Australia, I decided which team I was going to play club football with in 2014. I wanted a fresh start, so I didn’t want to go back to the Devils or the Falcons. A few of my good friends were playing for the St Kilda Sharks, a club based at the aptly named Peanut Farm Reserve, not far from St Kilda Beach. I liked the idea of playing for the Sharks, but I wanted to make sure I would be going to a club that was really going to believe in me and develop me as a person and as a footballer. There was another catch as well. Mum’s health had been deteriorating further, so I had agreed to become the main carer for my severely disabled sister, Livinia. I needed to know that the Sharks would not only take me for who I was, but be just as welcoming to Livinia, who would often need to come with me to the club.

  I knew the Sharks were the ones for me after I met with their coach at the time, Shannon McFerrin, who’s a legend in women’s football. Shannon completely understood where I was coming from.

  ‘Come over to us,’ she said. ‘We’ll take care of you, and Livinia is welcome at the club any time.’ She was true to her word. Everyone at the Sharks played a role in getting me back on my feet over the next few years, and the people at the club treat Livinia as if she were their own child.

  Interestingly enough, one of the people heavily involved with the Sharks when I signed up was Leesa Catto, who had relinquished her role as media manager for the VWFL some years earlier. Early on in my time with the Sharks, we had an important talk and I explained to her the way I felt after she asked me to cover my tattoos for the photo shoot in 2009. Leesa was quite taken aback by my version of events. She did not know that I had been so hurt by what she said. To her great credit, she was very apologetic and we have been on good terms ever since. She later explained from her point of view what happened:

  I didn’t really know Mo at the time, but I knew that she was a very good player, as were the other women who I teed up for the photo. I didn’t want any of them to have visible tattoos. It was nothing about Mo. It was never anything personal about her. I had no idea about the meaning of her tattoos at the time, that they related to her family and her father in particular. I didn’t want visible tattoos in the photo.

  Mo and I discussed the whole thing before we appeared on Australian Story. I apologised to her, because I never considered the impact that it may have had on her at the time, and I had never thought about it in the years since. I just didn’t think it was an issue. But I can see now that it contributed to her finding herself in a not-so-good place.

  When I started out at the Sharks, I felt at home straightaway. There was a great feeling around the club, and you’d go to training and everyone was laughing and having fun and telling jokes. It was exactly the kind of atmosphere that I needed. During the early part of the 2014 season I worked my way into some pretty decent form. I was back at full-forward, back kicking goals, and having the time of my life. The season would continue to get better and better for me, and I ended up kicking eighty-seven goals, including seventeen one afternoon against Bendigo. I also won the Sharks’ best and fairest.

  About a quarter of the way through that season I decided it was worth nominating for the second women’s draft, which was held to decide the make-up of the teams for the second exhibition match between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs. But this time it was a draft to top up the squads from the year before. I really wasn’t sure if I had done enough to be picked, so I was absolutely rapt when the Dogs chose me with pick ten. All of that hard work in the gym had paid off. My dream of playing for an AFL club was on the verge of coming true. Now I just had to do enough in the ensuing training sessions to make sure I got a game.

  On the day of my first training session with the Dogs, I was gripped by anxiety. As I drove into the car park at the Whitten Oval in Footscray, I could hardly breathe. I was soon suffering from a full-scale panic attack. I started thinking, I’m going to walk in there, they’re going to see my tatts, and they’ll judge me straightaway. They won’t accept me. I had a long-sleeved t-shirt on, but I was so worried about what the other players and staff would think when I had to get changed into my footy gear. I sat there for a minute or two. Nope. I can’t do it. I rang Tegan.

  ‘I can’t go in there,’ I said. ‘They’re going to look at me and tell me to go home.’ I was crying. Tegan did her best to reassure me.

  ‘I promise you that won’t happen,’ she said. ‘You have to go in there. It will be the greatest regret of your life if you don’t. And you don’t want to be a person who is filled with regrets.’ She was right. I had to dig deep into my reserves of strength and go in there. ‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘I’m going to do it.’ I didn’t want to let her down. She was trying so hard to keep me on track.

  Before getting out of my car, I reached into my bag and pulled out a packet of Xanax, a powerful anti-anxiety drug that I had been prescribed by my local doctor. I swallowed two of the tablets, took a deep breath, then grabbed my bag and walked into the change rooms. Even after taking the tablets, I was still on edge. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. Then I spied a bag of Bulldogs stuff with my name on it. I sat down and looked in the bag. There were so many items of clothing in there, including a brand-new footy jumper. It was all for me, and it was free.

  Looking at all the gear made me seriously happy. But my mood kept swinging wildly. When it was time to get changed I suddenly felt sick. People were going to look at me when I took my top off. Someone was sure to say, ‘We don’t want people with tattoos all over them on our team.’ Eventually I ripped off my t-shirt and pulled on a long-sleeved Bulldogs jumper. No one said anything. I sighed with relief.

  Once I was out on the training track I was fine. Peta Searle, my old coach from the Falcons—there were now nine ex-Falcons players in the Bulldogs’ squad—was in charge, and she helped me settle down. I soon became completely engrossed in the training session. Everyone on the track was a really good player and the skills on show were amazing. Every time I led for the ball, it would be delivered lace-out in front of my eyes. There seemed to be some really good spirit in the team, with everyone dishing out plenty of high-fives and pats on the back. Having been filled with nerves when I arrived at the club, I was now having a huge amount of fun. I remember thinking, Whoa, this game is so great. I love it.

  A few days later, the teams for the game were announced. I was named as full-forward for the Bulldogs. I was so stoked, and everyone in my family was super happy as well. But then came another seriously nerve-wracking time. The plan was for our team to meet at an inner-city hotel in Melbourne two days before the game. The idea was that we could hang out together and get to know each other, and do some light training (we hadn’t yet trained with some members of our squad because they were based interstate), in that time before the match.

  I felt sick in the hours before heading to the hotel. I was on the verge of vomiting all the time. I was so gripped by anxiety about what might go down while we were there. So many of the other girls in the team were the clean-cut and ponytail-wearing types that the footy administrators love. I was sure that they would weigh me up and think I was do
ing damage to their cause with my tattoos and short hair. I was so scared that I would meet one of the Bulldogs officials and they would say to me, ‘Who the fuck are you? The person running water?’

  My greatest fear was any team-bonding exercise, where we took turns to speak about ourselves to the rest of the group. I was sure I would say something dumb and everyone would laugh at me. I was in such a state and I was having conversations with Peta Searle in my head, saying, ‘Please don’t, please don’t do a team exercise. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to talk.’ I was always worried that everyone else was so much better educated than me. So I was like, ‘Man, I don’t want to answer any questions. What if I say the wrong word?’ I was also freaked out by the prospect of any team exercise that involved writing on a whiteboard. What if they make me write on that board? I can’t write. I can’t spell. If they ask me to write a word and I spell it wrong, people will laugh at me.

  I took a couple of Xanax before heading to the hotel. But as I walked towards the check-in desk, I almost had another panic attack. I remembered that we had to share rooms. This really worried me. I was certain that my roommate would think I was a dumb bogan. You cannot believe how relieved I was when I found out that my roommate was Emma Carney. I had played cricket with Emma and had always felt that she was a kind and caring person. I had never felt like she was judging me. In fact, she is one of the loveliest people I have met in my sporting career.

  Nevertheless, when I got up to our room I just wanted to stay there. I was that nervous about interacting with all the other players. When I finally emerged for dinner, I sat next to Emma but hardly said a word. I remember some of the other girls saying, ‘Mo, you’re the quietest person I’ve ever met.’ I just didn’t want to talk to anybody by this stage because I was so certain that they were all examining my every move. But with Emma’s support, I slowly came out of my shell. I talked to Emma a lot and that helped me get the confidence I needed to get involved in conversations with the others. After that I always tried to sit next to Emma in team meetings, because she was like a security blanket for me.

  Even though the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach started to go away that night, the only time I felt completely at ease during those two days was when we had a training session at Etihad Stadium. When I am chasing a footy, my mind becomes so focussed. Nothing else worries me. And the buzz from being allowed to train on an AFL venue was electric. For so long, female footballers had been second-class citizens in our own sport. Finally, we were being treated with the respect we deserved.

  The thing that would make my anxiety disappear completely was pulling on my Bulldogs jumper prior to the game. For me, it was like putting on a superhero costume. As soon as I had that jumper on I felt like I could take on the world. When we ran through our banner and out onto the ground I looked around the stadium and thought, Wow, this is pretty extraordinary. I could hear numerous members of my family cheering me on from the stands. What a journey I had been on. Twelve months before, I had been an overweight mess. Now I was playing for an AFL club at an AFL venue. It was unreal.

  I felt in the zone right throughout the match. Although we lost by forty-six points, I was able to get the better of my opponent and kick three of our four goals. I kicked the first goal of the game, which was a long set shot from out near the boundary. My other two goals were snaps, and they got a great response from the crowd. As I high-fived my teammates after kicking my second snap goal, I could hear the crowd really roaring. My inner voice was like, They seem to think I’m okay. They are accepting me. It was a tremendous feeling.

  When we returned to our change rooms after the game, I didn’t want to take my footy jumper off. This time it was nothing to do with people seeing my tatts and looking down on me. It was that I wanted to keep feeling like I had a superhero costume on. I feel deflated whenever I take off my footy jumper after a match. I’m like, I’ll just have to go back to being me again. That’s exactly how I felt on this occasion. Wearing that Dogs jumper and playing at Etihad Stadium had made me feel a million dollars. During the game, after I kicked those snap goals, I felt like people were staring at me for a good reason. But I knew that when I took my jumper off it would feel like I was crashing back to reality. And that’s exactly how it panned out. I took my jumper off and my mind went, Oh fuck, I’m a normal person again.

  Anxiety is such a hard thing to shake. Even though I had played so well for the Western Bulldogs in 2014, and later that season had won the Sharks’ best and fairest and been the club’s leading goal kicker, I still had a lot of self-esteem issues bubbling away inside me. Sometimes I went to functions and whether they were something to do with the AFL exhibition games or the VWFL, I would wear a headband over my hair and make sure I had my arms covered. Sometimes I found myself thinking, Maybe if I just grow my hair everything will be okay. I couldn’t wear dresses to functions, because I have never felt comfortable in a dress, but I went through a phase of wearing really tight jeans and girly high-heeled shoes. But this just made me feel like an idiot, and I wasn’t being true to myself. I was trying to change to meet the expectations of others, which is never a good thing.

  My mental state was still all over the place prior to the third Western Bulldogs versus Melbourne exhibition in 2015. When I arrived at the Whitten Oval for my first training session with the Victorian members of the Bulldogs’ squad, I was again gripped by fear. I suddenly didn’t want to get out of the car and I didn’t want to walk into the change rooms. In the back of my mind a little monster was telling me that something bad was going to happen. Someone was finally going to decide that I didn’t fit the look that the AFL wanted for women’s footy. It was like I was in a dream and I thought that any minute now I would wake up and my career in the AFL would be gone.

  It took another call to Tegan and some more Xanax to calm me down. As happended the year before, I was fine out on the training track, but when I was just hanging around with the other girls I felt so self-conscious. I felt like they were being critical of me all the time, even though I’m sure that most of them weren’t. Once again, Emma Carney helped me out a great deal. When I turned up at our team hotel, I found out that I was rooming with someone other than Emma and I nearly started crying on the spot. Thankfully, our team manager changed things around and I was able to be in the same room as Emma. That was a massive relief.

  As it turned out, there was a much bigger issue in the lead-up to that exhibition game, which was played at the MCG on a Sunday morning in May, prior to an AFL match between the Bulldogs and Melbourne. On the Saturday night I received a call from Mum telling that my older brother Corey was in intensive care. I think he had contracted pneumonia, then picked up another bug that made him swell up like a puffer fish. As I sat in my hotel room with Emma, Mum told me that Corey had died in his hospital bed before being brought back to life. Mum was very emotional. She said the doctors didn’t know if he was going to make it. I have to pull out of the team, I thought. I have to be there for my brother. Family comes first.

  It turned out that Corey had been taken to hospital that morning, but Mum hadn’t told me because she didn’t want to interrupt my preparations for the game. Even now, as she talked to me with such emotion in her voice, she told me that all the family wanted me to play. They wanted me to experience running around on the MCG. They needed something to be proud of at such a tough time. So I bottled up my feelings and went back to thinking about the game.

  I carried a lot of emotional baggage onto the MCG that morning. But I was still able to soak up the experience of playing at the home of footy. It was mind blowing to be out there representing an AFL club. There weren’t many people in the stands when our game began, but I didn’t care. Just to be out on that ground with the best female footballers in the nation was good enough. One of the great things about this particular game was that it was telecast by Channel Seven, so many of my family members were able to watch it while they were visiting Corey in hospital.

  I strugg
led to get into the game in the first half, as did many of my teammates. To be fair, Melbourne probably should have had the game in the bag by half time, yet their poor kicking—3.8 (26) to 2.3 (15) at the long break—kept us in it. Midway through the third quarter, with us trailing by twelve points, I marked a great pass from Stephanie Chiocci in the right forward pocket. I was on a really tough angle, so I decided to go for a banana kick, and it went right through the middle. Early in the last quarter, another great chance came my way when Jessica Wuetschner, who had come across from Western Australia to play in the match, kicked a ball in my direction in the left pocket. The ball bounced in front of me, but I managed to grab it cleanly, evade my opponent, then shrug off two tackles and snap a goal. I punched the air with delight. Suddenly, the margin was just two points. A few minutes later I had a shot to give us the lead. I desperately wanted it to go through, not only for my team but also for my family watching at the hospital. To my immense disappointment, the kick went wide. Melbourne then raced the ball up the other end and scored a late goal, which made the final margin eight points.

  It was a disappointing way to finish a great experience, but over the coming weeks my family was able to enjoy a victory of sorts. I don’t know how he did it, but Corey miraculously pulled through. His fight against the illness was so much bigger than anything I’ve been through in my life, and I think it helped to put all my battles into perspective.

  7

  Susan’s way

  THROUGH PLAYING in the exhibition games I was able to meet all kinds of interesting people. However, none of them have had a greater impact on my life than Susan Alberti. I met her for the first time when she addressed the Western Bulldogs’ women’s squad in the lead-up to the exhibition match against Melbourne in 2014. I will never forget the moment I first laid eyes on her at the Whitten Oval. We had just finished training and were sitting around on plastic chairs having something to eat. A number of the girls had been told that Sue was coming to see us, and they were really excited. They thought of her as the ‘Queen of Women’s Footy’.