Carlton AFLW star Darcy Vescio enjoying the wild ride of the inaugural season
THE inaugural AFLW season has been a “wild” ride for Carlton star Darcy Vescio so far, going from an unknown woman in a cafe to instant superstar in a matter of hours.
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HOURS before the AFLW season opener at Ikon Park on that Friday night in February, Darcy Vescio was grabbing a coffee at the Carlton cafe.
Dressed in black jeans rolled up to just above the ankle and a Blues polo, her presence didn’t cause a stir, maybe no one even noticed her.
She had no idea what would happen next.
Vescio’s four-goal heroics in front of almost 25,000 fans gave Carlton its first win of AFLW and a new poster player was born.
Walking from the dressing rooms to a press conference, past that same cafe, children flocked for photos and grown men yelled her name in between sips of a beer.
Her Instagram followers grew by 6000 almost overnight.
“It’s been wild,” Vescio told the Herald Sun this week.
“It’s really difficult to describe how it’s been because there’s just been so much going on. The highs and the lows and everything in between.
“The way Round 1 just erupted, it was like nothing we could have ever imagined.”
One of her Instagram posts — written on the eve of the Round 1 clash with Collingwood — was suddenly emblazoned on a T-shirt. People were wearing her slogan.
“I got tagged in something on Twitter and there was just some people sitting in the stands and I thought ‘yeah, they were just here to watch the footy and maybe because I kicked a goal they tagged me’ and I sort of zoomed in on the T-shirt and I was like ‘what?’,” Vescio, 23, said.
“That’s probably the craziest thing that’s happened. For people to actually go out of the way to print something that you’ve written on their T-shirt … now she’s got a website set up.”
The pre-game post wasn’t your usual promotion of a game. Under a photo of a smiling Vescio piggybacking an equally excited child, she wrote: “Wen you laugh togetha cos you know ur gonna smash the patriarchy”
“ … It’s pointed but it’s not aggressive in anyway; it’s quite playful,” Vescio said.
“I consulted with my housemate, ‘should I or shouldn’t I post this?’, she was like ‘if you don’t post it, who else is going to post it’.
“It definitely wouldn’t have had as much influence if the night hadn’t have played out how the way it did.
“ … The AFL and the AFLW is a real driver for change so I can sort of use that, sit in the driver’s seat sometimes — I’m happy to do that.”
Vescio is unique. The Thornbury resident has a quick wit and tells a good tale.
She’s softly spoken and almost laconic in her delivery, much like the way she plays.
An instinctive person and player.
“Sometimes I think some of the things I do are a bit weird, or probably not the traditional way to go about things, but that’s women’s footy,” she said.
Vescio recalls her first practice match for VFL Women’s club Darebin as a first-year RMIT University student. It was her first proper game since Year 7.
“I took a few good marks but I was just running in everyone’s space,” she said.
“I had no concept of holding structure. I’d only played juniors and then the footy I played at school, I literally had to run everywhere on the field because nobody knew how to play.
“I remember feeling so lost, but I play mostly on instinct (anyway). I think most of the coaches would say I still don’t understand structures.”
Vescio can sometimes look disinterested on the field, but then she’ll leap high over an opponent or pluck the ball from a contest with a burst of energy.
“My coaches ask me if I’m tired a lot, because I look like I’m really tired,” she said.
“I look like someone who’s just run a marathon but I’m fresh. That’s just how I look.”
Vescio is from Markwood, a small town with just a tennis court and primary school, which has since closed, 20 minutes on the Myrtleford side of Wangaratta.
She grew up on a farm with her family including brothers Zeb, two years her elder, and younger brother Louis. Nonna and Nonno lived “100m across the paddock”.
“We had beef, chooks. Every year Nonno and Nonna would slay a pig, sorry to the vegetarians and vegans out there,” she said.
“It was quite a nice place to grow up, just running around the farm. We played markers-up every night.”
Her mum Christine’s family is Chinese while her dad Paul’s parents are Italian.
“Dad’s footy obsessed, he’s very observant and he’s always giving me advice,” Vescio said.
“Mum would watch a game now and she still wouldn’t know the rules.
“I think they’re just blown away about how it’s all happened. I think they just feel really happy for me and all the other girls.”
Paul is only getting used to the new world order.
“Dad sometimes complains, because people who he said have never spoken to him before come up to him and say, ‘Oh, you’re Darcy’s dad’ and he’s like “I’m Paul, no, she’s my daughter’,” she said.
“He has a bit of a go but I’m like, suck it up Dad, it’s not that bad.”
Vescio, who sits four clear on the AFLW goalkicking table with 11 goals, was an Auskicker at nearby Whorouly and played junior footy until Year 7 before she had nowhere to play. Tennis, netball and basketball became her sports.
“I remember at the time it wasn’t even a big deal,” she said.
“I just thought that was the pathway: you’re the only girl in the team, you grow up playing surrounded by boys then you quit at 14 and that’s your footy career. As a girl, that’s how it goes.”
When she moved to Melbourne to study graphic and furniture design at RMIT, she followed the advice of a friend’s dad and joined the powerhouse Falcons where Melbourne captain Daisy Pearce became her teammate.
“When I was playing tennis I used to go up to Bright, which is where Daisy is from, and I remember my tennis coach saying there’s this girl, she’s moved to Melbourne, her name’s Daisy, she used to play for Bright and she’s playing (in Melbourne) and she’s doing really well,” she said.
“I was like ‘yeah, it’s probably not that good. I’m probably never going to run into her’.
“I remember getting down to training and seeing all these girls kicking drop punts and the way they handled the footy, (I thought) it’s real. This is a whole team of girls who can actually play footy.
“Daisy was one of the girls there; she was the one driving me to and from training and taking me to games. It’s funny how things work out.
“It was almost like a different world. It’s not a world I’d ever known or knew existed.”
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