Adelaide Crows coach Brenton Sanderson at home with fiancee Veronika Tammeova. Picture: Calum Robertson Source: Sunday Mail (SA)
CONSIDERING she's from a small town in the Czech Republic, he grew up in Blackwood and they met in a bar in Dublin, the odds that Crows coach Brenton Sanderson and fiancee Veronika Tammeova would end up together were pretty slim.
But, six years after first laying eyes on each other, they are busy planning their January wedding and mapping out a future together in Adelaide.
Veronika was working at Buskers Bar in Dublin when her future husband walked through the door in 2006.
"I didn't really think anything much at first because you are working in a bar and you can't pay much attention," says Veronika, who had taken a part-time job there during her university studies.
Adelaide Crows coach Brenton Sanderson at home with his fiancee Veronika Tammeova and dog Max. Picture: Calum Robertson
"But I do remember the first impression was that he was kind and he's always been like this, he was very gentleman-like."
Brenton, however, who was holidaying in Ireland, has a slightly more powerful recollection.
Brenton Sanderson and his fiancee Veronika Tammeova at Melbourne's Brownlow Medal night. Picture: Twitter
"I remember the first time I saw her there behind the bar and I said to the guys I was with, `imagine the guy who is with that girl. He must be the luckiest man on this planet'," he says.
The language barrier was a slight problem but Brenton, 38, admits he did his best to keep the conversation flowing.
The duo kept in touch sporadically in the pre-social media days.
However, Brenton was savvy enough to suggest Veronika contact him should she ever find herself in Australia.
As luck would have it, she did, having been awarded a prized scholarship to study business and hotel management in Sydney 18 months later.
"When I came to Sydney I knew no one. We had formed a friendship so I called Brenton, who was living in Melbourne at the time," says the 29-year-old.
Brenton just happened to be in Sydney for close mate and Geelong dual-Premiership captain Tom Harley's engagement party and he asked Veronika along as his date.
"That's when the sparks really flew," he says.
"From my point of view the chemistry was too hard to ignore. I always had that attraction but when we actually spent time together 18 months later, that's when the sparks flew.
"I just found myself always wanting to be around her.
"She was just so different to any girl I'd ever met at that time.
"Since then I've obviously met a lot of her friends and her family and her sister and there is something about these eastern European women.
"Whenever we spend time with her friends there's a lot of laughter, a lot of passionate debate about things, strong opinions and nothing is hidden.
"Everything is out in the open and that's the main attraction."
Veronika, who now works here as an event co-ordinator with Variety, the Children's Charity, agrees that even in those early days she knew she'd met "the one".
"Even at the start I just sort of knew and I've never had that before," she says.
"I knew this was a guy that I would want to eventually have a family with.
"He is just different, he's quite special from the other guys.
"Whatever he says you just believe it - he is a truth person, very genuine and to me that was something really important.
"I saw a man that would really care and he's always been like this.
"Even now after five years he's like this and if I have a bad day or go Eastern European on him he is still cool and treats me like a princess.
"I have never met a guy like that before, a person that would be so kind and have such a beautiful soul - I tell him that all the time."
Today, as she sits in their large, beachside home, enjoying a glass of wine and reminiscing, it's clear that Veronika has an awareness of where she is now and where she's come from.
She grew up in a small town called Opava, almost 400km east of Prague, with sister Tereza (now 25 and living in London) and mum Gabriela (her parents separated when she was nine). Throughout her childhood, money was tight.
"We never had a car - it was a very poor background which is why I am so appreciative of what I have now," Veronika says.
"It was a modest lifestyle. When I was 13, if I wanted new jeans we had to pay half, so my first job was riding a bike 7km from home to a garden centre where I worked for 50c an hour.
"But I remember this time really clearly, one of those beautiful days when you come home and you have two or three dollars."
This drive and determination has been a common thread in life for Veronika, who ended up studying hotel management and tourism in Prague. Her desire to see life beyond the Czech Republic was strengthened when she saw a glossy brochure to study overseas.
"It had these happy people on the front cover and you know when you have this feeling in your chest like it's something that you really want, and I was looking at that cover of the happy people thinking, I really want this," she says.
Following her time in Ireland, Veronika was awarded Prague's Soukup Memorial Scholarship Foundation, sending her to Australia, despite still having only a basic grasp of English.
She recalls being in university lectures in Sydney just five years ago and having no idea what was being said.
After six months something just clicked and her English has been on the improve ever since.
In 2008, she eventually moved to Melbourne to be closer to Brenton, then based in Torquay as an assistant coach at Geelong.
"That was a really hard time because I didn't know anyone there and I didn't find work. It was tough," she says. Eventually, Brenton moved back to Melbourne and commuted to Geelong before the couple relocated to Adelaide in 2011 when he was appointed coach of the Crows.
Veronika is quickly learning to love both the game and the club.
"I am a keen Crows supporter now," she says.
Another thing she is very passionate about is helping those who have very little in life.
Earlier this year, she volunteered through World Youth International to spend almost three months in Kenya, working with orphans and helping run community projects.
"I think for me I feel really privileged for what I have and where I am right now, not just my health but also the tangible things I have in life,"
she says.
"People can find excuses like there's not enough time or money, or they're too busy and it's too hard. I just wanted to go and see what I could do.
"Nobody can prepare you for this and nobody can come to me and describe everything that happened. It's beyond understanding."
While Brenton was supportive, he admits he was nervous.
"I know how dangerous some of those African countries are at the moment and particularly how dangerous it might be for a really attractive blonde walking through the poor areas of Kenya," he says.
"I'd heard some really bad stories but she was determined to do it and you can never tell her not to do something. She assured me that everything would be okay.
"It was really a challenge, though, as her 10 weeks away coincided with the start of the season, so I was flying solo here and I knew she was solo over there, four or five hours from the nearest city, working in an orphanage.
"It's certainly pretty amazing for a girl on her own."
Once she returned, Veronika admits she had trouble adjusting to normal life back in Adelaide.
"Our life is very comfortable and I'm very lucky. We live in a developed country in a lovely house and yet for three months I was washing myself in a bucket," she says.
"When I first got back I was very teary and Brenton would ask, `what's wrong?' and I couldn't really explain it.
"I pushed it away but now I am more accepting of it."
Now, Veronika is helping in a different way.
She has set up a charity through a friend's clothing website (salonenfant.com.au) where a portion of clothes bought is donated to an educational scholarship for Kenyan children.
"I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship through the Soukup Memorial Scholarship Foundation which brought me to Australia and changed my life forever," she says.
"I feel somehow obliged to give back and I believe that my Kenyan experience has happened for a reason."
Life in a Kenyan village is a long way from the red-carpet lifestyle Veronika is able to enjoy in Adelaide.
She may have local designers clamouring to dress her, such as Alexis George for the Brownlow Medal and Crows best and fairest nights, and Liza Emmanuele, who is designing her wedding dress, but Veronika is clear about what is important in life and she takes nothing for granted.
"One of the biggest appeals for me is that she is so down to earth," says Brenton.
"She comes from a humble background and didn't have the benefits of things we had here in Australia.
"I think that's why she is so grounded when it comes to helping the less fortunate."
In the past year, Veronika has embraced her seaside lifestyle with Brenton and their beloved dog, Max.
The couple says children are definitely on the agenda, with plans to buy a new home and establish a family life here.
"All my family is here in Adelaide, which is great, and Veronika loves it here so we'll certainly be here so long as the Crows will have me," Sanderson says.
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