My Way by Moana Hope

Author:Moana Hope [Hope, Moana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522871531
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2017-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

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’.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was so shocked when she walked into the room. She had this extraordinary hairdo and was carrying a Dolce & Gabbana handbag and wearing a pearl necklace. The pearls really struck me. The only time I had seen pearls before was in the movie Titanic, when the posh people on board that ship were wearing them. I had no idea who she was. I was thinking, Who is this lady, and why is she here? I didn’t know she was the club’s vice-president.

As she started walking around the room and chatting to the girls, I began feeling extremely anxious. I thought, Fuck, she’s going to look at me. She’s going to stare at me for too long. She’s going to judge me. A person like her is going to think I’m some kind of animal, with my tatts and no ponytail. I was heading straight into full panic attack mode, so I tried to avoid eye contact with her. I really didn’t want to have to talk to her. With, She’s really going to think I’m a loser if she hears me speak, being the main thought coursing through my brain, I was silently begging, Please don’t ask me a question.

The funny thing is that some judgemental thoughts did pop into Susan’s head when she met me, as she said much later on Australian Story: ‘When I first met her I kept thinking, “How could a beautiful young woman (and she is beautiful, she really is beautiful) want to cover herself in tattoos?” So I did judge her, but I was so wrong and I will admit that.’

Despite all of this, it wasn’t long until I started warming to Sue. She had come to see us and tell us her life story and about a cause close to her heart, the Susan Alberti Medical Research Foundation. She started by telling us how she grew up in a housing commission home and that her family could rarely afford nice things. I could relate. Wow, I kept thinking, what an amazing journey she must have been on. It was clear that her wealth and status had not been presented to her on a silver platter.

Sue also told us about how she and her first

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