“That moment,and those boys being there,that really mattered. It showed the true power of diversity.”
For someone whose passion - other than football - is to help make everyone feel they “fit in”,it was a happy collision of two worlds.
Hood’s day job is running Community Hubs Australia’s 100 school-based programs supporting school-readiness for kids from non-English-speaking backgrounds. The hubs also help the children’s often-isolated mothers to learn English and make connections,including to employment.
In her role as a footy club president,which she describes as a “weird” job,Hood is determined to keep fostering inclusion. She still feels that women at the top stand out in the “man’s world” of AFL. The reasons for this can be as simple as not having a nickname like the coteries of blokes.
She still recalls with a chuckle that “infamous women’s round lunch about 10 years ago where we all got washing powder in the gift bag on our seats”. There was some outrage at the table.
“I remember when I first started working in footy ... they were just genuinely confused about what we were there for. There was a bit of ‘women run the canteens in local footy,women are players’ mothers’,” she says.
Not that Hood is complaining about gender disadvantage in her role;in fact,she believes football has vastly improved regarding respect for women and diversity. But it had a way to go.
Drinking mineral water with Friday lunch at the demure Errol Street restaurant (which she chose in part because she is a coeliac and “the Italians are very good at gluten-free”),she recalls the vicious racism she witnessed as a child.
When I started working in footy ... they were genuinely confused about what we were there for. There was a bit of ‘women run the canteens,women are players’ mothers’.
Sonja Hood
“We had Jimmy and Phil Krakouer playing for our side,and the crowd racism was a frequent and regular feature of every single game I went to,” says Hood,who lives on the other side of the Yarra.
“My Dad and his cousin would end up in an argument always defending the Krakouer brothers against language that was part and parcel ... It was properly racist.
“That’s not to say it doesn’t happen now,but you can count[the number of times it happens]. We know it’s unacceptable,and we treat it as unacceptable. Are we a racist country? Possibly. Are there racists in our country? Yes. But we know it’s unacceptable,and we talk about it and that’s an improvement.”
The proprietor of Sosta Cucina,Maurice Santucci,is himself the son of migrants from northern Italy.
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Today the menu offers hand-cut,wide-ribbon pappardelle with slow cooked lamb ragu with peas and pecorino Romano,chosen by Hood (she has gluten-free pasta instead of the pappardelle),a caprese salad with vine-ripened tomatoes and fior di latte and a rocket salad with provolone,fresh pear and lemon dressing (ordered to share,with taleggio-creamy porcini risotto for me).
As the lunch crowd builds to 30 - a good sign of COVID recovery,as only eight had booked - Hood explains it took her six months to come around to the idea of being president,even though she had been going to North games since childhood.
Her divorced dad,having three daughters and not knowing what to do with them at the weekends,made footy a family fixture. Her relationship with North Melbourne developed to the point where it is “important to me and my family and my life. It’s kind of who I am,I suppose.”
Even so,when two other board members asked her to go for it,“my immediate response was no”.
“I was drawn to the board[which she joined in 2019],as I knew I could make a difference,” says Hood,describing North Melbourne as “a little club with a really proud history,proud tradition and really strong values”.
“I’ve spent a lot of time mentoring younger women and challenging them to imagine themselves in those kinds of positions,yet my default for myself was not to.”
Nonetheless,in March,after former president Ben Buckley stepped down,Hood became the fourth female president of an AFL club. Buckley wrote to members that his replacement was “as North Melbourne as anyone I’ve met”.
She certainly appears a refreshing choice,being from the social sector,not business,and holding a PhD in Population Health from the University of Melbourne and a Master’s Degree in Policy (from Penn State University).
She is a divorced and re-partnered mother of two adult children who is warm and open;as comfortable talking about being a child of divorce in 1975 - when few other kids at her school were - as she is about how women aren’t well enough warned of the symptoms of menopause,or how getting therapy post-divorce can be useful.
And she appears to have a playful streak,joking that a month into her new gig she is still asking herself “what are the KPIs”.
“Don’t let the club go broke,make sure the CEO doesn’t have a breakdown,” she quips,before adding that “it’s about forming a lot of relationships with lots of people - of listening and a lot of connecting.”
When she was appointed,the other three female AFL presidents - Richmond’s Peggy O’Neal,Melbourne’s Kate Roffey and the Western Bulldogs’ Kylie Watson-Wheeler - invited her out to dinner. Roffey warned her counterpart that “this is the strangest thing you’ll ever do - when it gets too strange,ring me and we’ll talk about it”.
A couple of hours with Sonja Hood leaves you with the feeling it would be a stack of fun if they did.
Sosta Cucina,12 Errol Street,North Melbourne,open Tuesday-Saturday for dinner 6pm-10pm and Friday for lunch 12-2.30pm. 03 9329 2882admin@sosta.com.au