Maggie Varcoe’s father Brian tells of his daughter’s sharpness, passion and fierce spirit, nine days after the young footballer died
“MAGGIE-waggy, lovely-wubbly, baby-waby,” Brian Varcoe would yell out to his daughter Maggie as he dropped her at school. She’d walk it off with a cheeky grin, but get him back later. Brian recalls Maggie’s “fierce spirit” and sharpness, 10 days after a tragic accident claimed her life.
MAGGIE-waggy, lovely-wubbly, baby-waby.
It was the inside joke that proud father Brian Varcoe would yell from the car when he dropped his youngest daughter, Margaret, at school in Adelaide’s northern suburbs more than 15 years ago.
Maggie, as she was known to close friends, would shoot a cheeky grin over her shoulder at her father in the car as the other kids echoed the catchy phrase around the schoolyard.
“Everyone would start saying it, that was in primary school – and high school too, sometimes – but she would get back at me,” Mr Varcoe, 77, told The Advertiser.
“She was so independent and she put me in my place a few times. There was a fierce spirit that was just built into her.”
Tragically, that spirit faded nine days ago when the 27-year-old died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital surrounded by family.
The talented footballer, who is the youngest sister of Collingwood AFL player Travis Varcoe, died from a head injury sustained in an on-field collision.
Maggie clashed heads with an Angle Vale teammate in a freak accident during the division two women’s Adelaide Footy League grand final on August 26 at Thebarton Oval.
She walked off the field but later collapsed in the team’s dressing room.
“I just thought ‘she’ll be right because she’s fit and young’,” Mr Varcoe said.
“But then the bad news came. The doctor said they did all the tests they could and she was brain dead.”
Maggie was on life support for four days before her family made the heart-rending decision to switch it off.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Mr Varcoe said. “I just left everyone at the hospital and I walked out of the room and cried all the way home.
“I took the train and I got off at the wrong station. Everything was a blur.”
Sipping on a cup of tea with a slice of Vegemite toast inside the neat Davoren Park home where Maggie grew up, Mr Varcoe said football was always in his daughter’s blood, even though he did not realise at first.
A large oval opposite the family home was a green kingdom for Varcoe children Travis, Yvonne, and twins Adam and Maggie, in their early years.
“If there was a football, you wouldn’t see them – or other kids from the neighbourhood – for hours,” Mr Varcoe said.
“She’d always be out there on the oval, kicking the football with her twin Adam and Travis.
“She was really good and she was tough. She’d be into the boys and into the mess-up, she was very tough. She never gave up.
“(But) she was smart, too. Maggie graduated high school (in 2008) and won a government-funded (opportunity) to present a speech in London.
“She had all the smarts like that.”
In later life, Maggie’s passion – and undeniable skill – for football became too strong to ignore.
She joined North Adelaide’s SANFLW team and was a proud player at Angle Vale, where the No. 1 guernsey has been retired in her memory.
Maggie’s teammates remember her many quirks, including the outrageous pairs of socks she loved to wear for special off-field occasions.
Mr Varcoe said he would miss Maggie’s “sharpness” the most.
“She started her nursing degree and was working in a unit but she didn’t like it,” he said.
“I joked, ‘but, yes, it’s great practice for looking after me later on’. She just said ‘no’, and gave it up.
“I said ‘Maggie, you should have just finished it so you’ve got something to fall back on’.
“She just turned to me and said ‘Dad, your job finished when I got my Year 12’.
“She said it just like that and I left it. That was my girl. I’m going to miss her dearly.”
Travis Varcoe will on Saturday play for Collingwood in its qualifying final against West Coast Eagles at Optus Stadium in Perth.
Every player and official involved in this weekend’s AFL finals matches will wear a black armband in a show of support for the Varcoe family – and for the Sloane family, which is mourning the loss of Rory and Belinda’s stillborn son Leo.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said the black armband was a way for the competition to pay its respects and extend its deepest sympathies to the two families.
Richmond premiership captain Trent Cotchin raised the idea with the league this week.
Maggie will be laid to rest at a funeral service on Tuesday.