Bravery is the ability to knuckle down and confront your greatest demons. It is also the strength to pick yourself up when you’re down. By Zee Ko
Don’t let her stature fool you; dainty Sarah Sumner has bags of pluck.
“Everything went a little to pieces last year,” the 20-year-old Preston Lions midfielder admits.
“When I think of [my time at] Altona, I feel like I lost more than I ever won.”
It was the end of the 2010 Women’s Premier League season and the once proud Preston outfit had just been relegated following a shambolic campaign.
Coming just two years after a fairy tale finals run, the bottom placing and subsequent demotion had most at the club wondering what had gone wrong.
A former Victorian representative at Under-17 level, Sumner was in demand by the likes of Bundoora United, but had almost decided to stick with her team until Altona City came calling on Gold Medal Night.
“I liked Spiro [Thalassinos], the 2010 Preston coach who was telling me to stay, but he decided not to continue on a month later. Then Altona approached me with an offer to move clubs that I eventually accepted.”
The transition came as a bit of a culture shock for Sumner, as she struggled to come to terms with pre-season training.
“We’d run a few laps of nearby Cherry Lake, and we didn’t see much of the ball till a month later.”
By this time, the teenager had developed twisted abductor, groin and hip muscles from the lengthy runs and was unable to train for days at a time.
Life at the new club was not off to a great start, and the small things inevitably started to add up.
“You plan in your head what you’re going to do before the game. I couldn’t do that with Altona, preparation was a little different.”
While the young midfielder struggled to hold down a place in the first team, her natural stubbornness didn’t make things any easier.
“I remember once when I had a sore quad and didn’t do the warm up before a training game but still wanted to play. The coach told me not to play the game and to run laps instead, but I refused and ended up sitting the match out.”
There’s a wistful look in her eyes as she recalls the events of a year ago.
“I was immature and would try to get away with things when I should have known better.”
Integration into the Altona team was also proving a sticking point off the pitch while Sumner was trying to prove a point on it.
“I loved to have a drink like any other young teenager, but when things got a little hard, I drank a little too much and I didn’t know when to stop. I’d come to training and I wouldn’t talk to people if I could help it.”
The once promising midfielder’s form became patchy, her displays erratic as she battled personal demons to go along with her late nights out partying and all too infrequent match starts.
Sumner started considering a transfer back to Preston but the transfer window slammed shut and she ended up staying on for the rest of an ultimately wretched and disastrous campaign.
“It came down to the last game of the year against Box Hill, and we needed nothing less than three points. We ended up drawing 0-0 and I only came off the bench in the 87th minute.”
Looking back on her time at Altona, the girl who started playing football at age 8 admits it was probably rock bottom.
“It was the biggest wake up call in my life, I took time out away from the parties and thought a lot about things.”
There were to be no crowd of coaches clamouring for her signature this time round, a far cry from events barely a year ago.
One club did offer her a lifeline though, and it was none other than Preston, bouncing right back up into the top flight at the first opportunity.
“It was good to be back to the club where I’d had the most success, and to see all these familiar faces.”
A rebuilding process of sorts had begun in 2012, as Preston’s No. 9 sought to put the pieces of her footballing career back together at B.T. Connor Reserve.
But the road to redemption is always a tricky one to manoeuvre, as Sumner soon found out.
A 5-0 reverse to Casey Comets in the first round hinted at things to come, as the club struggled with the loss of playing personnel and a coaching change in mid-season.
“It was a fun learning curve, I guess,” Sumner admits as she remembers having to stand in as a makeshift sweeper for the first half of the season.
A much more mature player had emerged at Preston, even as the club struggled to stay off the bottom of the table.
The girl had become a woman, the frustrated figure at Altona banished to another time and another place.
“I’ve learnt new foot skills under Moris [Mihailidis], learnt to run with the ball heaps more and to draw players in, whereas in other years I would have taken no more than two touches.”
Some things never change though, even all these years later.
“I hate how I still get so nervous before games, so nervous I can’t even eat. I think why do I care so much when we’re already relegated? But yet I do.”
And so she takes to the field, with a chip on her shoulder and a mirthless snarl on her face. Come at me world, do your worst.
“[Altona] made me a better person, because I made so many mistakes, thought I was invincible. Seeing all that went wrong, and losing things I wish I hadn’t, it’s made me change myself for the better.”
For now Sarah Sumner’s a Lioness, falling back in love with her football once again.
Preston is a home, a safe haven of sorts.
“You don’t forget where you come from, no matter where you’re headed. I’ll forever be thankful for the opportunity Andy Fry and Preston gave me at a young age.”
Two more rounds to go, and then the whole of spring to make a decision on where to head next.
“Premier League football keeps me sane.”
Deep down she’s a fighter.