Bruised, sweaty, intense: I played my first game of footy at the age of 25

I was 25 the first time I joined a football team. Growing up in central-west New South Wales, I didn’t even know what a Sherrin was, let alone that playing Aussie Rules was an option for me.

I was living in NRL territory – a Rabbitohs girl – although I knew my cousins went for a team called Carlton and that the Sydney Swans were popular among a few niche kids at school. But that was about it.

Marnie Vinall, a late convert to AFL.

Then in 2013 I moved to Melbourne and fell in love with a boy who went for Essendon, and consequently fell in love with the sport. All it took was the heaving of the MCG on Anzac Day, the collective yelling of “baaaaalllll” and the passion of the women’s competition, and I was in – hook, line and sinker.

Ten years later and AFL is at the fore of most of my life, work and play.

But it wasn’t until 2017 that the AFLW got off the ground and, even then, when I showed interest in taking it up at community level I was told I was probably too small to play. I’d get hurt.

Yet when my friend invited me down to Hawthorn Amateurs to have a run around, I couldn’t help myself. I was excited and anxious in equal measures.

Age sports reporter Marnie Vinall (left) with a teammate.

Those first few sessions were hard. My social anxiety peaked, I wasn’t any good at kicking and, despite being a community sport with a bunch of newbies, it was intimidating, competitive and tough.

Not only was it my first go at footy, it was my first time playing a contact sport. I’d been a dancer from age three through to 18, classically trained, and spent a fair chunk of my upbringing with my hair in a bun as I travelled around the state for eisteddfods and finished my high schooling in Sydney at a performing arts school.

I was familiar with performative and competitive pressure. But I’d never – not once in my life – physically bumped another person. Or had another person tackle me to the ground.

One of the main aims of performing on stage, particularly in ballet, aside from telling a story with your body, was to be aesthetically pleasing. And after spending so much of my formative years concerned with making my body as small and elegant as possible, there was something almost cathartic about the ugliness of football.

Especially among women. The mud mixed in with sweat, the yelling and aggressiveness, the physicality and way bodies would crash and fall.

After weeks of training, it came time for the preseason match against a neighbouring rival club. I was put in the backline – an interesting choice for someone 160 centimetres tall, in their first game with not a lot of bicep on them, but I hadn’t proved any goalkicking ability, nor was I good enough to go anywhere near the midfield.

The ball didn’t come down back a lot, so I spent most of the day wide-eyed running back and forth. And, by all normal means, it was an average game. Nothing special, I jarred my pinky and I probably got three touches all up. None of them effective.

But it meant a lot to me.

I did get hurt. My body bruised and I found there was grit within its soft tissues. I was not quite glass and not quite stone, and it felt liberating in a way I hadn’t known before.

I’ve since transitioned to mostly writing and reporting on games, rather than actually playing. I’ll fill in when my local team is short on numbers – the last game I played I scored from the pocket, so at least some signs of improvement – but that first season gave me newfound freedom in how I viewed my body, and self.

While not particularly strong in the physical sense, there was a toughness there. And each week, I still marvel at the power and hardiness of the women and non-binary athletes who take the field.

It can be brutal out there. And those players are as tough as nails.

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