Jenna Brown is a name you may or may not have heard of, but the Canadian born Black Rock dynamo has made a big splash since landing on Australian shores within the last twelve months.
Hailing from Victoria, Canada on the west coast of Canada, in the providence of British Columbia on Vancouver Island, Jenna made the decision to pack her bags and travel around the world in 2022, with the ambition of finishing her travel in Australia.
"I've always kind of wanted to do it. In 2022, I quit my job and I travelled for a year and the goal was always to end up in Australia and end up with a holiday visa and make some money while I was here, but still be able to keep exploring the country, but I've always wanted to come and live here.
"I've had a few friends that have moved over here and never gone home,"
Having grown up on the other side of the world, Jenna had no knowledge of the beautiful game of Aussie Rules, which made it even more intriguing to her when she got here.
"I hadn't watched a full game and didn't know much about it until I came here. My friends here from Melbourne are very into football and I remember going to the park over the summer and they were always like "Oh you're really good!" and then they bought tickets to watch a round one game of the AFL and they were the ones that got me into footy and it motivated me enough to sign up for a team.
"I even brought my cleets over because I knew I was either going to play soccer or join some kind of team and that was something that I wanted to do. My friends were all like, "you're really good at kicking the footy for someone who's not played or seen the game, so why not join a women's footy team,"
However, it was her boyfriend that sent her over the advertisement from the Black Rock Football Netball Club that had her land at the Jets for season 2024.
"My boyfriend sent my a advertisement from the Black Rock Football Club looking for women's footballers and I immediately thought that I would text the coach and the next day, I was down there for training and I really liked it and I really liked the girls and they were really intrigued about where I had come from,"
"If it wasn't for my friends that had motivated me to get involved in a women's football team, I'm not sure I would've done it on my own,"
But this is where the story gets better when Jenna pulled on the red and black of Black Rock for the first time.
"We had a practice match at the beginning of March and had been training for about a month and I was so nervous, and we were driving out to Yarra Junction and I was asking my boyfriend all these questions on the way, mentally taking notes. But as soon as I got out there, the first two minutes I didn't need to be that nervous.
"I ended up kicking five goals for the game and I kept saying that it was beginners luck and everyone was so hyped up. I loved playing in the centre half forward position and it just felt natural to be playing in that part of the field,"
What makes this story so great is that Jenna has also been named in the latest Interleague Squad for the Southern Football Netball League, despite her short amount of time playing Aussie Rules football.
"I'm nervous and excited to meet a whole new bunch of girls that I haven't met before and play with some of the best girls that play the game and I look up to the girls in my team that I'm going along with. It's humbling for me, I think I'll learn a lot, it's going to be really competitive and be good to meet girls that I've already played against,"
Not only is Jenna making a noise on the football field, she's got a growing following on TikTok that she's storyboarded her journey from Canada to Australia and learning the game of Australian Rules Football.
"I brought the idea up to my friends, as I've previously done some travel blogging and I thought that I should make a series of me learning about Aussie Rules Football.
"As I'm sure you would know, I was hoping to get plenty of positive feedback but wasn't always the case and I was just hoping that I wasn't going to get bullied or anything like that so I went into and hope it'll be interesting for Australians and hopefully it'll be entertaining for them to tune into.
But people from far and wide were willing to help her, with even a man at the park with his dog, which you can see on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@jennnabrown/video/7346046741885504773 offering their assistance to help the Canadian-born to understand the game of football.
"The reason I decided to go ahead and do it was to be able to look back on the first video and be "wow, this is how far I've come," so to speak and I know in that first video that I made that half the things were probably wrong, but it'll be good to look back on.
"I also wanted to inspire people t0 get involved in a sport that they know nothing about and I didn't want people to think that I knew everything about Aussie Rules because I didn't.
"But the TikTok that really took off was when I took my little rubber footy to the park and I was going to teach myself how to bounce the ball and I'm going to film it, and I know it's going to be funny, but I was watching the girls and training and knew it was something I had to learn. I failed bouncing the ball a number of times and this guy in the background was watching me and he slowly walked over and showed me how to bounce the ball,"
The video above is something Jenna looks back on and how she's been received by Australians, not only at the Black Rock Football Netball Club, but in the general public, it means everything to Brown that from her team-mates, her friends, her coach have shown her great respect in her story about developing her own game and learning the sport since coming to Australia.
Jenna will have her hands full with the upcoming Interleague match against the Riddell District Football Netball League, as well as the rest of the season at the Black Rock Football Netball Club.
