I rarely look at Facebook these days but stumbled on a fantastic post this week from Kath Wicks, a sports-mad senior editor at the Herald, about the remarkable journey the Matildas have been on for the past decade.
Kath summarised perfectly the rapid rise of women’s soccer by recalling how on December 3, 2011, she took her son to see Sydney FC and Perth Glory at Leichhardt Oval. With typical 11-year-old boy bravado, Kath’s son proclaimed from the stands that his school team could beat the girls. Kath pointed to Caitlin Foord, who was only a few years older than him at the time, and replied: “You could not beat her, matey.”
Sydney FC won 11-0 that day thanks to the stunning skill of Foord and other team members such as Renee Rollason, Teresa Polias and Leena Khamis. The poor Perth Glory goalie was a 17-year-old Mackenzie Arnold. “Fast forward 12 years and Foord is on a 30-metre billboard in the city and Arnold is keeping clean sheets against France,” Kath wrote. “Happy World Cup, everyone.”
The billboard Kath mentions is an enormous image of Foord plastered on the side of a Kent Street office tower. On the other side is another star of last night’s World Cup clash between Australia and Ireland at Accor Stadium, Mary Fowler.
Caitlin Foord’s image looms larger than life on the side of a Kent Street office tower.Credit: Nikki Short
The Herald’s deputy editor, Liam Phelan, had mixed fan loyalties last night as he watched on from the crowd. He grew up in Ireland but (rightly) backed the Matildas. His view of the game? “Last night was a showcase of the great city that Sydney can be,” he said. “Good transport to and from the game, a top-class stadium and a capacity, noisy crowd who followed every kick.
“Ireland may not have the best soccer team in the world … but they have some of the best fans. Whether belting out lines from the song The Fields of Athenry or joining the Mexican wave with such gusto that a group managed to drench themselves in beer just in front of us, they were determined to have a great night out.
“As someone who grew up in Dublin but now lives in Sydney and raised my family here, I felt like I couldn’t lose. I backed the Matildas for the win, but joined the Irish for the singing. My daughter Rosa summed up the spirit of the night perfectly with her scarf: Irish on one side and Australian on the other.”
An electric atmosphere has struck Sydney this week as the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off. Covering a major event like this – billed as the biggest sporting event here since the Sydney Olympics – requires a big effort from reporters, journalists, producers and editors. Reporters Vince Rugari and Emma Kemp, who have done a terrific job on this story so far and will anchor our coverage over the next month, deserve a special mention.
I loved Emma’s piece about how the Matildas proved themselves a team in every sense of the word following the surprise absence of captain Sam Kerr due to an injured calf. I was also glued to this piece by Vince and our visual stories team exploring how to lay a perfect offside trap – and how to break it. Cartoonist John Shakespeare, who many of you know and love, also worked on the project, tracing images of players on field so they could then be turned into a 3D animation with the help of an artificial intelligence program. And for a bit of fun, we also asked AI to predict the scores and Matildas’ fate at the Women’s World Cup. You can read the impartial findings of Robotinho, our resident AI football expert, here.
As Vince wrote this week, not so long ago female players had to bake lamingtons or sell nude calendars to raise money for overseas trips, and stitch the coat of arms onto their loose-fitting, hand-me-down jerseys themselves. A century ago, football was deemed “medically inappropriate” for women, and was banned entirely. Ten years ago, the Matildas could barely organise a match on home soil, and when they did, no more than a few thousand people would turn up. Eight years ago, they had to go on strike to force the national federation into modest improvements on pay and working conditions.
“How times have changed,” Vince wrote. “More than 1.25 million tickets have been sold for the World Cup, the overwhelming majority of them for games on this side of the Tasman. The antipodes, for so long regarded as a footballing backwater, will for the next month be the centre of the footballing world.”
With so much dark and depressing news around our city, country and world, it’s so nice to be able to distract ourselves with something uplifting for a little while. Go Matildas!
P.S. We’ll be sending a special Women’s World Cup edition of our Sport newsletter after each Matildas game throughout the tournament. You can sign up here.
Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.
