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Canteen lady, Vicky D’antonio (61) is renowned within the community for her decades of hooligan-like loyalty to the local soccer club – despite her youngest son not playing competitively for the side for over 15 years.
Vicky began volunteering at the Betoota Stallions when her eldest signed up to under 8s soccer in the late 1990s.
Loved by all families and players, she went on to become an institution over the grill – with nearly 30 years in the same cinder block canteen.
Although some do question Vicky’s way of showing support outside the canteen: Such as being caught smuggling flares into the 1500 capacity district stadium the night before the most recent semi finals appearance in 2019, or her habit of starting violent chants to antagonise opposition teams during the 80th minute of tied matches.
However, most just adore Vicky’s sacrifice for the club and love for community spirit.
Betoota Advocate spoke to Vicky on the eve of a local derby to get her feelings on the match.
“I expect nothing more than complete domination from our boys and I want to see tears from those Betoota Azzurri fans, we at Betoota Stallions are the true representatives of Italian-Australian football and they need to accept this”.
While Vicky is known to support the division 1 boys, she’s also willing to lend vocal support all the way down the club’s ranks, including at an under 14s game.
This became a problem several years ago when she organised a banner for the Betoota United match, taunting the opposing club for a recent controversy that had resulted in their club treasurer being arrested for laundering thousands of dollars through the club.
Vicky’s banner is believed to have read: “JUST LIKE THE CORRUPT MIROSLAV VUJACIC, YOUR UNDER 14S WILL BE GOING HOME IN SHAME” .
With suburban Australian soccer still trying to lose a reputation for hostilities and community violence, some say figures like Vicky have been a dis-service to the beautiful game in this country.
Vicky disagrees.
“Pfft, if you think this is bad you should have seen the nineties” says Vicky.
“We really took the fight to those Croatians when Betoota Stallions took on Flight Path Croatia in the national final” Vicky said while serving a family behind the canteen counter.
“Heroes were born on that day.. on and off the field..”
