Kathy McMahon was walking around the Marvel Stadium concourse on Saturday night, her husband Paul striding next to her, scarves around their necks, smiles on their faces.
They had just seen their youngest son Tom and a bunch of his mates dressed in hospital scrubs in the stands. One with a stethoscope, another a lab coat.
Western Bulldogs footballer Sam Davidson at home with his parents and brother Tom.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Kathy and Paul hurried to their seats, only to be repeatedly stopped by Dogs fans.
“Are you Sam’s mum?” they asked.
Kathy blushed. “Yes.” The supporters had seen her in a club social media video with her son Sam Davidson, who was making his debut for the team that night. Suddenly, Kathy was famous. (Paul wasn’t. He wasn’t in the video.)
Ironically, Kathy probably had a deeper connection to any of those Bulldogs fans than they knew, and it was nothing to do with Sam. Associate professor Kathy McMahon has been the head of paediatrics at Werribee Mercy Hospital since the unit was formed six years ago and she was hired out of Frankston Hospital, where she had been head of paediatrics, to set it up.
“More people should know her from her work there, particularly Bulldogs fans – she will have treated some of them,” Sam said of his mum.
“She loved it, though. She put it in the family group chat straight away. She was pretty chuffed, telling us she was finally famous now.”
Such is the way of modern life. Kathy’s not-yet-a-doctor, footballer son, who was then about to play his first AFL game, was more famous than the woman who had spent a career saving babies. Coincidentally, she also once wrote a masters paper examining injuries in under-10s and under-15s kids playing Aussie rules.
Kathy found a note recently that Sam wrote when he was kid. “I want to be an AFL footballer and a doctor when I grow up,” it read. He has achieved one of those goals and is closing on the other. His ambition is not just to be a doctor but to do what his mum did (and his older brother Jack is close to doing) – become a paediatrician.
“I think I saw how much Mum loved her job throughout my childhood and I was encouraged in a way to pursue that area,” Sam said.
Middle child Sam with brothers Jack and Tom.
On a night the Bulldogs mark their 100th anniversary as a VFL/AFL team, old Footscray weaves through the story of the late-developing Sam, who has put those medical studies on hold to pursue the AFL career that crept up quickly on him.
Kathy’s family were deeply embedded Bulldogs.
“Dad was born and bred in Footscray, a dyed-in-the-wool Doggies fan. As kids, we lived in the country a lot because dad (Laurie) was a principal of schools. But as an adult, Mum and Dad used to always go on Saturday to Western Oval, as it was then. And we loved it, we were mad Doggies fans,” Kathy said.
Laurie, who played a few games for Sandringham in the VFL, then other clubs until he was 40, would get all of Kathy’s three boys out the front of the house, stressing the importance of kicking with both feet.
Sam and his younger brother with Chris Grant.
When eldest son Jack was born, Paul, who was born and raised in Sunderland in the UK, had a friend paint a mural on the wall of the boys’ bedroom. It incorporated sporting passions: the Western Bulldogs, English soccer club Sunderland, and the London marathon. Kathy also runs marathons and half-marathons – with all her spare time – including the London marathon.
Recently, Tom, the youngest son and, according to Sam, the battler of the family (he only managed a 95 ATAR as opposed to his two older brothers’ 99s – though he did upstage them by winning the Premier’s prize for maths), suggested that at 21 maybe the time had finally come to paint over the mural. Paul was horrified. Sunderland (and Bulldog) ’til I die. The mural remains.
Sam was a skinny kid and just an average player at school. He played as many seconds games as firsts for St Kevin’s College in year 12. He had figured the AFL part of his childhood dream was likely to be as realistic as it is for most kids, and focused instead on his studies.
He got into medicine at Monash University, but continued playing footy casually, first at the school old boys in the ammos, and then when medical placements took him to Sale and Mildura, in the country. At first, he played for fun. But then he got better and football became more serious.
In the strong Sunraysia league, Sam played for South Mildura, who hadn’t won a match for about 670 days. On the day Sam and his mates played, they got a victory. The league judged Sam the best player.
That inspired him to think his footy might yet go somewhere. When he went back to Sale on placement, he played for Maffra in the stronger Gippsland league and continued to do well.
Paul and his three sons.
Just over 12 months ago, Sam had just finished the fourth year of his medicine degree and was planning a gap year with mates. But he sat down with Kathy and Paul and told them he wasn’t going to Europe – he was going to have a crack at footy.
“We thought, ‘What? Really? Footy?’ We thought he might get a game or two in the VFL if he is lucky,” Kathy said.
A friend knew Steve Morris, the Richmond VFL coach, and Sam got down to Punt Road to train. He got a game for the VFL when the AFL and VFL teams had injuries, and didn’t look back. He held his place and ended up winning the award for the best under-21 player in the VFL. At the end of the year, he was drafted to, of all clubs, the Dogs.
Not giving up on sport is something of a family trait. Paul played soccer at a lowish level in England – where he met Kathy when she was working in Manchester. Paul gave soccer away in his 30s and got into athletics.
At 41, he went to the World Masters and came second in the 800 metres. Overachievement runs in the family.
Sam’s medical studies cannot be indefinitely delayed. You can take a year off a medical degree, but not more than that without doing some form of study.
“I am in my sixth year,” he said. “The uni has a rule that you are meant to finish the degree in 10 years, but I am about to start a part-time PhD, which would be an extra five years, and that would push out the end date for medicine. It could potentially be one of the longest-ever medical degrees.”
His thesis is on how medical practitioners can better utilise parents’ knowledge of their own children in diagnosing serious illnesses.
At uni, Sam had never thought of giving footy away just because he was a mile off being an AFL footballer. He kept playing because he loved it, kept training because in his family that is what you do. Until she was chased by two men when riding through a tunnel under the Western Ring Road one night, Kathy would ride from home in Brighton to work in Werribee a couple of times a week.
On a recent holiday in the UK, Kathy and Paul rode from John o’ Groats in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall.
“The boys have seen us do something most days, we both do some sort of training every day,” Kathy said.
Having drive is one thing, but realising it is another. Sam still can’t quite believe how things have fallen for him not only to be an AFL player now – he kicked a goal in his first game last week – but to be playing at the Dogs.
“Being drafted was a bit of a fever dream and took a while to sink in that I had been picked up by the club I grew up supporting,” he said.
“I got a few chills running out to the theme song and through the banner.”
A son of Kathy and Paul. A son of the west.
Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.
