'She'd help me get changed and send me on my way'
Kayne Pettifer | May 6, 2007
The Age
I NEVER really gave Mum a choice over whether I played football. I fell in love with the game early and she has supported me all the way.
She remembers driving me down to the local footy ground when I was two years old to kick a ball around while Dad trained the local footy team he coached.
I would run around for ages until I was absolutely wrecked, and Mum would wait patiently for me.
I soon started going with Dad every Tuesday and Thursday and she would get out my clean footy clothes, help me get changed and send me on my way.
Once I started playing football she never missed a game. She was there when we were warming up and waiting for me to walk out of the rooms.
As I developed my football I began playing in representative sides and school football.
Because we lived in the country, Mum and Dad would drive me to training more than an hour away from my home town.
Even today, despite working more than 40 hours a week, coaching my youngest sister's netball team, watching my other sister play netball every week and taking my sisters to all their representative training and games, she still watches me play football almost every week — driving for more than two hours from country Victoria.
Mum has always put her kids before herself and with my demanding career she has sacrificed a lot. She has driven eight hours to Adelaide and flown to Queensland to watch me play football. Last year Mum would coach my youngest sister at nine in the morning, go home and pack for the trip down to Melbourne, call in to watch my other sister play netball around lunch time, eat lunch in the car and drive down to Melbourne and stop off to watch my brother umpire football in the Essendon Football League, all on the way to my AFL game. What's amazing is that she would do it every week.
She devotes herself to the club as well, always going to club events, offering assistance where she can and often driving the players around (whether it be on club business or just social).
Mum got married at 18, had my older brother at 18 and me at 20, my first sister at 24 and my youngest sister at 29. A young mother with two cheeky young boys faces a lot of challenges. With Dad working long hours, Mum was responsible for much of my development as a kid. She had to forgo finishing high school to raise us kids and made sure we got a good education and a healthy dose of physical activity.
My parents were your average working-class battlers, struggling to provide for their kids, and devoted what little money they had to my football. If I needed new boots, they'd work overtime so that they could afford them.
While playing for the Bushrangers, I moved to Wangaratta to focus on my career and struggled immensely with homesickness.
When I was on the brink of throwing everything in to go back home, my mother would call constantly and reassure me that everything would be fine, and would come and visit me nearly two hours away after she'd finished work to make sure that I was doing all right and offer support and encouragement.
She did it again when I was drafted to the Tigers. I was homesick again and was tempted to throw it all in until Mum stepped in and offered so much guidance, which helped me get through the hard times.
As a mum of an AFL player, some of these kids look up to her and she's always there to offer a word of encouragement.
I think that people find my Mum inspirational — and not just to me and my siblings.
Sally Pettifer is one of three finalists in the award. The other two are Fay Tuck (mother of Richmond's Shane Tuck and Hawthorn's Travis Tuck) and Lizzie Davey (mother of Essendon's Alwyn Davey and Melbourne's Aaron Davey).
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/shed-help-me-get-changed-and-send-me-on-my-way/2007/05/05/1177788467026.html
