Growing up, Lauren Arnell’s football was limited to kicking with the neighbours on the farm next door or in the school yard.
There was no girls’ football team in her home town of Clarkefield let alone the pathways that exist now.
In fact, there wasn’t, and still isn’t, a football team, senior or junior of either gender, in Clarkefield.
“I’m a triplet and from the time we were two to 15 we lived in Clarkefield,” the Carlton skipper recalled last week. “I grew up on a farm, which was a lot of hard work and I didn’t love it as a teenager.
“I had to travel eight kilometres just to get to the bus stop. I place value on it now and the travelling helped teach us patience and that life isn’t an easy road.”
Like many children, Arnell grew up loving football. With her dad’s family hailing from the Bulldogs’ heartland of Braybrook, she was a Western Bulldogs supporter, watching the footy every weekend.
Keen to extend her love of the game, she tried to convince her parents to let her try what is now known as Auskick, without much success.
“The neighbours were Carlton supporters and we used to kick the footy and play cricket with them. I used to play at school as well.
“The boys treated me as one of them and I got tackled as much as they did. I pushed to do Vickick, but with the three of us, we got asked to choose one sport and I was already involved in basketball.”
With basketball taking off, Arnell put the thought of playing football out of her mind to concentrate on making it on the court.
She played with the Sunbury Rebels and represented the Sunbury Jets from under-12s to under-16s.
Entrenched in the basketball community, it was a wrench for Arnell when she and her family moved across the state to Lakes Entrance. “I wasn’t overly excited by the move,” she recalls. “[Clarkefield] was the only area I knew, but it taught me a lot to be uprooted like that.”
Arnell continued to play basketball, representing Latrobe City Energy in the Big V competition, and she had planned on continuing that when she moved to Ballarat at 17 to attend university.
“My new friends happened to play football and that had never crossed my mind. I’m not one to miss out so I took the opportunity,” she said. “I made the Victorian under-19 team that same year. I think kicking with the boys when I was younger helped.”
Arnell spent just one year in Ballarat before moving to Melbourne. She linked up with the powerful Darebin Falcons in the Victorian Women’s Football League and has shared in nine premierships with the side.
She has also represented Victoria six times and is a three-time all-Australian. And last year she was selected by Carlton as one of its priority picks ahead of the inaugural AFL women’s season.
The Blues had employed Arnell in an ambassador role prior to that. She now works full-time with the AFL in an education role.
Arnell is also an ambassador for VicHealth’s #ChangeOurGame campaign, which is aiming to change attitudes towards women in sport and encouraging female participation in sport.
“Footy is the greatest game in the world, with the freedom to run around, and I couldn’t imagine playing anything else.
“There are now role models for young girls to look up to.”
