For as long as she can remember, Chelsea Randall has loved animals. The captain of the Adelaide Crows women’s team grew up in Perth, and one of her favourite early childhood memories is being amongst the menagerie at her grandmother’s home.
“My grandmother lived just a few minutes away and had cats and dogs and chickens and other birds, and I always loved going there, feeding them and just being with them,” Chelsea said.
Later the family acquired dogs, the first one a stray that followed them home one night from a circus.
“We joked that Jessie came from the circus,” Chelsea recalled.
“She was my Dad’s best friend, she used to sit up beside him in the grader when he worked on the roads.”
Jessie was later joined by Harley, named in honour of Chelsea’s mother’s love of Harley Davidson motorbikes. Chelsea soon formed a close bond with the Golden Retriever cross puppy – “I told her all my secrets…she was like having a friend you could trust not to share them.”
Nowadays Chelsea and her partner, fellow Crows player Marijana Rajcic (better known as MJ) share their home with an 11-year-old Border Collie cross named Koda (who has been Chelsea’s companion since she was in her late teens) and two-year-old Lenny, a two-year-old kelpie cross from a farm litter.
“I said I’d look after him for a while, until they could find a home, but he’s still here,” Chelsea laughed.
Compassion for animals has seen Chelsea volunteer at a dog shelter in WA while in her final year at school, and also become a foster carer of dogs while working in WA’s Pilbara region. While she loves all animals, Chelsea admits she has a particular connection with dogs, which explains her enthusiasm at a recent photoshoot for the team where players posed with some of the dogs at RSPCA’s Lonsdale shelter in need of homes.
Chelsea said she hopes her ambassadorship encourages “more good people to connect with fantastic animals that need homes”.
“I’m very passionate about animals – what they teach us is valuable, we learn so much from them and they teach us so much about ourselves,” she said.
“I’m keen to share stories about what the RSPCA is doing for animals because I think everyone, animals and people, needs second chances and I know the joy and benefits they bring to our lives.
“You can’t put a price on that.”
Today’s announcement of Chelsea’s ambassadorship with RSPCA SA coincides with International Dog Day and comes ahead of tonight’s first round match for the AFLW who will play the Melbourne Football Club in a match that kicks off at Glenelg Oval at 7.10pm.
