How ex-footy star Jobe Watson’s escape to New York during the Essendon drug scandal changed his life forever
After weathering the Essendon drugs saga, Jobe Watson escaped to New York seeking sanctuary. There, he took a gamble that would pay him back with a partner, a baby and a flourishing career away from footy.
Lifestyle
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AFL champ Jobe Watson and partner Virginia Slaghekke’s first meeting reads like a scene from a Hollywood romance movie.
The former Essendon captain spied the brunette across a cafe table in New York as she sat immersed in study for an exam.
Though their eyes never met, he was captivated. He texted his then-housemate seeking advice on what he should do.
“I text (her) and said, ‘There’s a girl sitting across the table, should I give her my number?’ and she said, ‘Yes, absolutely!’” Watson says.
“I said, ‘Well, she’s not actually giving me any indication she’s interested in receiving it,’ and she gave me a great piece of advice. She said, ‘Well, no one doesn’t like receiving a compliment, and if you give someone your number you’re paying them a compliment that you find them attractive.’”
When Slaghekke got up to leave, Watson scrawled a note on a serviette and made a dash down the street of the hip Brooklyn district of Williamsburg to pass it on to her.
“I spoke to the guys behind the bar and got a napkin and chased her down the street and then mumbled to her, ‘Here’s my name and my number if you’d like to catch up for a coffee.’”
The rest, as they say, is history, but it wasn’t quite so picture perfect. It actually took Slaghekke more than two months to call “the cafe guy”.
“Two months later, I had a couple of drinks with a friend and I was like, ‘I’ve got a number from this guy, I thought he was cute.’ So it was a bit late, but it worked out pretty well,” Slaghekke says.
“We were actually living two blocks away from each other for eight months and by the time we met, I then kept running into him and seeing him randomly everywhere.
“We probably passed each other 20 times before we actually met.”
It was fortunate she reached out when she did because Watson was two weeks from leaving New York to return to Melbourne and his AFL career.
The couple met in 2016, the year he was suspended from playing on the back of the Essendon drugs saga.
Watson had taken the opportunity to head to the US and experience life away from the pressures and routine of his previous existence. He became a barista and lapped up life as a regular guy.
So when former Dutch model Slaghekke met him, she had no inkling of who he was or what he did.
“It’s almost impolite to ask someone what they do straight away, so every time I tried to get out of him what this guy was doing, because he was telling me about all these trips he was taking, and I was like, ‘You’re really living the life,’” she says.
“I said, ‘What are you going back to Melbourne for?’ and he said, ‘My sister’s wedding and other things.’ It took about three hours before I had any idea what he was doing.”
The son of three-time Essendon premiership player and broadcaster Tim Watson, who was drafted by the Bombers under the father-son rule in 2002, says he wasn’t deliberately trying to be mysterious. But he also wasn’t flaunting his footy career.
“To be fair, at the time it wasn’t something I was really volunteering,” Watson says. “If someone had Googled my name, it probably wouldn’t have been great.
“It was two weeks before I was coming back to Melbourne. It was a bit of an unknown, really. We both really took a bit of a chance.”
Coincidently, Slaghekke had applied for an exchange program to Melbourne as part of her biomedical degree.
“It was quite lucky because I’d gotten an email from uni asking me if I wanted to do an exchange in Australia. (It) was in the middle of winter so I thought, ‘Yes, I do,’” she says.
“That happened to be in Melbourne, so when I met him I said, ‘I’ve just applied for this exchange in Melbourne,’ so it worked out well.”
The couple have called Melbourne home for two years and welcomed daughter Juniper last September. Slaghekke will soon start graduate studies in clinical psychology.
“I think it’s been quite good falling in love with someone from Australia. It could have been a lot worse,” she laughs.
“Melbourne brings together so many elements. The people are very open-minded, there’s a lot of culture, but at the same time, there’s also beautiful weather. It’s relaxed, but there’s also a lot going on. There’s just a great mixture of things.”
Watson, 34, is thrilled to be home and have family near him in Albert Park.
“Since Juniper arrived, Melbourne has been home and luckily enough Virginia is quite happy to stay here. For me, I’m lucky my family is here and Melbourne is such a familiar place and we both love it,” he says.
Slaghekke, 29, says while it’s been challenging not having her own family nearby, particularly since becoming a mum, she has developed a close relationship with Watson’s clan.
“It definitely changed things having Juniper. You can’t just drop in for a cup of coffee,” she says.
“But I’ve been very lucky. Jobe’s family is just amazing. I’ve become very close with his family. There are a lot of coffee drop-ins (from his parents around the corner). It’s been so great to be so close together.
“It’s really nice that Juniper’s got cousins from Jobe’s sisters. They’re all around the same ages, all girls.”
The couple has no immediate plans to marry, but would like to add to their family down the track.
“No plans at the moment as we’ve been very busy with this little one,” Slaghekke says.
“She’s keeping us busy right now and I think it’s such a special period, but definitely in the future we’d love to have more.”
Watson returned to football for a final season after the year off in 2016, but has since stepped away from the sport completely.
He’s now a director of Infolio Property Advisors, a property management and buyer’s advocate business based in South Melbourne.
“I’ve been working in that since I retired, so that’s buying for investors and owner-occupiers as well as property management,” he says.
“It’s been a really good experience for me. I really like property and I’ve really enjoyed running a business and what that entails and removing myself from the football world and learning new skills and being involved in a new industry.”
It’s been a conscious decision to move away from the world of football and get a fresh perspective.
“When you think about personal development — it’s an important part of it for me, anyway — I was craving something new and to learn new skills and be involved in a different industry. The football industry is a fantastic one and you meet so many incredible people in it but after a 15-year period, I was searching for something else,” he says.
While the Essendon drugs scandal robbed him of his 2012 Brownlow Medal and a year playing the sport he loved, Watson say she doesn’t look back on it negatively.
“It was an incredible opportunity to see another world and immerse myself in different cultures and to be in a different industry. It’s difficult to immerse yourself in other things if your main job requires so much of your energy. That was what football was,” he says.
“For me, I look back on that opportunity in 2016 really fondly and look at what it gave me and the avenues it opened up. I feel it was a great opportunity and I look back on it not so much with negativity but what it created for me. Having the freedom to be there and live
in another city was amazing, and New York, I have such a fond affiliation with the city now because of it.”
During his time there, Watson went into partnership with the Aussie cafe owner who gave him a job when he first arrived. They now run two Hole in the Wall cafes and Watson also recently opened an F45 gym in Williamsburg.
“Williamsburg has a dense population of Australians so it’s nice to have that familiarity, but the Americans are starting to embrace the concept and (US actor) Mark Wahlberg bought into the business late last year and that’s helped it to grow into the American market,” he says. “It’s going to continue to grow over there. The concept of F45 works well in the New York market where it’s high intensity and everyone’s in a rush.”
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The glamour couple’s New York connection has also led to a new opportunity in Melbourne as special guests of the Melbourne Racing Club during the Caulfield Cup Carnival. New York City is the theme for Caulfield’s race days this Spring Racing Carnival and the new parents are excited to be a part of the action.
“Horse racing is such a beautiful event and people make a lot of effort to be a part of it,” Watson says.
“I’ve been to the Caulfield Cup and the Guineas and have fond memories of being in the betting ring there. I haven’t been for about 10 years and I’m looking forward to taking Virginia there.”
Slaghekke has never been to the races but is looking forward to the chance to frock up and have fun.
“It’s one of the highlights of Melbourne, but it’s very foreign to me so it sounds quite exotic,” she says.
“I talked to Jobe’s mum about it. She said it’s one of those days that everyone mingles, the food is beautiful, and there’s the atmosphere of people coming together and having a good time.
“It’s exciting to dress up. You don’t get to dress up like that for many events. It’s a great opportunity to go all out.”
In the meantime, they’re enjoying all the excitement that footy finals bring to Melbourne every September.
“Any ex-player will look at this time of year and probably be envious of the guys (playing in today’s Grand Final) and the opportunities they get to play in,” Watson says.
“It was the same when you were playing and it still is for the guys who get to go out and play. It’s such a special time in September in the city.”
THE CAULFIELD CUP CARNIVAL RUNS FROM OCTOBER 12-19. MRC.RACING.COM/SPRING
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