Oh we're from Tigerland
Stories of being Richmond
Sharni Watters, 23, and Sam Westergreen, 24, both from near Launceston
Sharni’s favourite all-time and current player
Jack Riewoldt – “He brings a lot of passion to the game and it’s like for him his teammates are more like family than just players.”
Sam’s favourite all-time player
Robbert ‘Bones’ McGhie – “He was a bit of a rebel, he wasn’t clean-cut like the others, wasn’t a pretty boy. He had the tatts and the moustache and the ponytail and he drank a beer on the field after winning a grand final.”
Favourite current player
Jack Riewoldt – “For me his spirit embodies the club. He takes a lot of personal pride in his game and how the team are going.”
Pray for little mercies.
This story begins on the second day of this year, but it starts also earlier, and later.
On Saturday 2 January, a young woman from Hadspen, on the South Esk River upstream of Launceston, gave birth in Royal Hobart Hospital. It was an emergency caesarean. A first-time mother, Sharni Watters had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy disorder characterised by high blood pressure, a common cause of death during pregnancy.
“The doctors said if they didn’t get the baby out I would likely have a stroke.”
So at 25 weeks gestation – 13 weeks early – baby Jazmin was born. She measured 22cm and is believed to be Tasmania’s smallest single-birth baby. She weighed 360 grams, less than a block of butter.
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The smallest Tiger: baby Jazmin Michelle Westergreen, born 2 Januray 2016, weighing 360 grams.
“She’s our little miracle,” says Sharni.
She’s also their lovely little Tiger.
The proud dad, Sam Westergreen from down the Tamar at George Town, contacted the Richmond Football Club in early April to tell part of their story. “We’ve spent the last 13 weeks staying in Hobart at Ronald McDonald House next to the hospital, waiting for her to breathe and feed on her own before we can all go home,” he wrote. “The Richmond FC means a lot to our family and watching the team play is a great distraction for us, it gives us a bit of normality.”
I contacted Sam and Sharni and we agreed to meet, in either Launceston or Hobart, where the Tigers played last Friday night. I took part of my family to the game. I wanted to meet theirs.
But a month ago, another email. Sam and Sharni were at the Royal Children’s Hospital in North Melbourne. Jazmin was undergoing surgery. It was to remove a polyp in her throat that restricted her breathing. She was flown up in a humidicrib.
Offering another distraction, we arranged to meet at the hospital.
“It’s been very difficult,” says Sam. “Most people’s experience with a newborn is being able to take them home, but it was six weeks after birth before we even got to hold her.”
Sharni picks up the lead: “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried because it’s not how I pictured everything. At first we were only allowed to hold her hand or touch her. It took weeks of begging to be able to have a cuddle, and they took her out and all the machines were working perfect, so she was happy.”
Through grief and bereavement, football has been a welcome diversion, no matter how the season has played out. The football takes on other meanings.
On the outer: Sharni and Sam outside their hospital ward in Melbourne and as with all of this year, waiting and hoping for the best.
Both are Richmond fans, both born into Magpie nests. “All my family are Collingwood, my uncles and aunts, everybody, but I’ve liked Richmond for as long as I can remember because of the colours,” says Sam.
For Sharni, her mother’s only child and growing up with an absent father, the yellow and black came through her grandfather. “He’s Richmond and when I was little I’d sit down with him and watch them play,” she says. “I’ve got so many fond memories of him jumping up and down with excitement. He’s been more like a father to me.”
Jazmin’s surgery in Melbourne was on a Thursday, the day before Richmond played the Sydney Swans at the MCG. Sam had never been to the ’G, so they bought tickets; top tier of the Olympic Stand.
“It was amazing, so exhilarating, to be in the stands and you’re all there for that one purpose, to watch the game,” he says. “It feels like you’re a part of it when you’re cheering your team on. It’s the participation. Watching on TV you feel a bit disconnected from it, but when you’re there you’re part of it.”
And what a memorable first-time football experience in Melbourne!
“That siren blew and Sam Lloyd had the ball all the Swans supporters around us booed as loud as possible,” he says. “He kicked the ball and it felt like it was in the air for the longest time, and then it went in and there was this almighty roar.”
For that moment, for all Richmond supporters wherever they were, all of life’s misfortunes were mute. It was a release of joy and celebration, of the improbability of life, of what can be done with enough willpower. Here was sweet belief. A release.
“Everyone started screaming and yelling and Sam gave me a big kiss,” says Sharni.
“I actually had to apologise, it was the hardest I ever kissed her,” adds Sam.
And thoughts at once turned to family. “As soon as the club song came on we rang my grandfather and we sang it with him and he was so happy, I could hear it in his voice,” says Sharni. “He would have been there with us but he just couldn’t afford the trip over.”
Last weekend in Tasmania, visiting to watch Richmond play at Bellerive Oval on a bitterly cold Friday night, I had hoped to catch up with Sam and Sharni again, after the game, to catch up on their progress. The surgery in Melbourne had gone well, and they had returned to their temporary home by a hospital bed in Hobart, and little Jazmin was into the 22nd week of her life.
A long trip home: Jazmin on her way from Royal Hobart Hospital last weekend, destined for Launceston General Hospital and one step closer to home.
Early Saturday evening, after Richmond’s loss, came a text from Sam: “The Tassie Tigers are homeward bound, our 155 day journey is over and a new chapter has started.”
He attached a photograph of little Jazmin in her car capsule, with a crocheted rug, leaving hospital for a first time, destined for Launceston.
On my long way home from Hobart, driving north into a storm and to a ferry to Melbourne that would be cancelled, I contacted Sam and Sharni again, wanting to take a family portrait of the three of them. But this time Mother Nature intervened. Rising floodwaters on the South Esk River scuttled plans.
I asked Sharni what she had learned from her ordeal, what advice she could offer others.
“Never give up,” she says. “You’ve got this little baby that’s counting on you so you can never give up. You have to hold onto the hope because at the end of the day they’re what matters.”
“And I think we’ve become stronger for it.”
Go Tiges!
If you would like to nominate a Richmond fan who has a story to tell about their barracking please email Dugald Jellie with details: dugaldjellie@gmail.com
