A new club, a new city, a new wife and a new baby; not many AFLW players can claim to have had a busier six months than Britt Gibson.
After spending two years with the Brisbane Lions, she jumped at the chance to join her childhood club and play for the North Melbourne Tasmanian Kangaroos.
“North Melbourne is my one true love,” Gibson told the Herald Sun.
“Obviously you get a little bit excited about the team you barracked your whole life coming into the competition, but I was very happy in Brisbane.
“They treated me really well; it was just a massive pull to be back closer to home.
“Obviously it’s a dream come true to put on the blue and white and to wear No.18 — I’ve idolised (Wayne) Carey my entire life, it was kind of like ticking one little box after the other.
“It’s been a very special six months or so for us.”
Aside from North being the club that Gibson had barracked from her whole life, the club’s relationship with her home state, Tasmania, was a huge factor in her move.
Gibson grew up on a farm at Wilmont, near the pictueresque Cradle Mountain in Tasmania’s north.
“We had beef cattle and potatoes,” the 26-year-old said.
“Pretty much all I’ve ever done is farming and driving tractors and harvesters.”
Gibson’s relationship with heavy machinery has translated from the farm into her adult life, now working as a stevedore at the Melbourne Docks.
“I’m a wharfie,” she said.
“I do a lot of shift work — quite often I’m coming from shift work to training, or I’m going to there from training.
“I do a lot of night shifts at this time of the year just so I can fit everything, which is quite challenging but I love it.
“When you love something, you don’t mind too much, do you?”
It was in her home state of Tasmania where Gibson began her football journey with the Burnie Dockers.
And football wasn’t the only fairytale that would begin in Burnie, with Gibson meeting her then to be future wife at the club.
The pair played footy together at the Dockers, where Jaime was the first female player/coach of a premiership side, and were married in November.
But Jaime is happy to leave the on-field stuff to Britt these days.
“I love football,” said Jaime, who will do special comments on tonight’s game for ABC radio.
“I’m nowhere near as talented as Britt.”
The couple have also recently had their first child, Henry, who has naturally become their number one priority.
“I don’t think people understand that these girls have full-time jobs as well as home lives — football is not the top of the list,” Jaime said.
“For most of them you don’t survive off football.”
Henry comes to training on Monday nights.
“The girls all dote over him, the whole club do really,” Britt said.
“He’s flying down to Tassie this weekend; hopefully he’ll run out with me.”
Gibson was dubbed the ‘The Dozer’ in the early days of AFLW after clearing an opponent out of the way with her head.
And the Kangaroos’ vice-captain has shown the same attributes in her time in defence with North.
In Round 1 however, Gibson showed her eye for goal, collecting a handball near the centre before taking off and unloading from 50m for a stunning goal.
“It was a little bit of luck,” she said.
“I’m naturally more of a mid-forward — I don’t mind kicking goals — so when I saw my opportunity, I had to take it.
“I was pretty stoked.”
