The History of Women’s Football/Soccer in Australia

With the Women’s Football World Cup recently being held in Australia and New Zealand and the focus of much media attention, the UK National Archives featured a story on history of their national team, the Lionesses, who have made the final but were beaten by Spain and this prompted us to take a look at the history behind the sport.  Although the game of football has been played for centuries, you might think that women have only been playing over the last generation or so. In fact, their participation dates back much further than you might imagine. It is claimed that Mary Queen of Scots herself owned the oldest football in existence, and in May 1881 the first recorded women’s football match was played at Easter Road, Edinburgh.  It is interesting to note the influence that decisions made in the UK had on the game in Australia.

Girls Soccer 1918 – Qld, Australia

Latrobe Ladies Football Club – 1921

There is evidence that women’s football in the UK was being played informally back as far as the 18th century as was the men’s game. During the 19th century the men’s game was formalised and this saw women seeking to establish teams and leagues in the same way but they met with growing resistance, despite reports of some games attracting attendences of up to 50,000 spectators. The British Press were relentless in their negative reporting of the women’s game, attacking the women for their attire and bodies and selling the game as a rough men’s sport unsuitable for women. In the decade prior to 1894, when there was an attempt to start a formal women’s competition, there are many reports of violent pitch invasions from protesters causing games to be cancelled. The new competition was also highly criticised for charging for tickets and after a few attempts at establishing competitions, without support, either financially or from the public, interest waned and matches dwindled, however, the women did not give up. At the same time, the men’s game was growing to be the most popular sport in the world.

During the war years when the men’s game had been suspended, women were taking on traditionally male jobs, particularly working in factories where sporting activities, i.e. football were encouraged to benefit women’s health and wellbeing.  With the full support of the FA, the women’s game saw a dramatic rise in popularity when competitions were established as a way of fundraising for the war effort, aiding morale and boosting productivity. Matches attracted crowds into the tens of thousands and the Press were right behind them even featuring centre spreads in their newspapers. Sadly, this support would not continue once the war was over and the men had returned home. There were claims of misuse of funds and with the men’s game not attracting the crowds that the women were, the FA took the decision to effectively ‘ban’ the women. The FA apologised later but the damage had been done and it took several decades for the women to once again be recognised. The ban was lifted in 1971 but the English professional league did not start until 2018.

In Australia, by the time the Soceroos had qualified for their first FIFA World Cup competition which was held in 1974, there were regular women’s football leagues established in most states but still no national competition, however, that was about to change. When the first National Women’s Soccer Championships were held in Sydney in August of 1974, five teams participated and at the end of the week of matches, team officials met and agreed to establish an organisation which would promote, foster and manage women’s football in Australia and the Australian Women’s Soccer Association (AWSA) was formed. This paved the way for the National Championships to go ahead and they were played every year until 1993 expanding along the way to include Junior and Youth divisions.

In 1975 an Australian team was invited to participate in the Asian Women’s Championship in Hong Kong, however they were not recognised as a National team for this tournament despite gaining permission from the Australian Soccer Federation to wear the green and gold. Although considered a ‘B’ grade tournament, the team gained it’s National team status in 1978 when they were invited to compete at the first World Women’s Invitational Tournament in Taipei, Taiwan. Their first ‘A’ grade tournament was held in Sydney in October in 1979 when they played a New Zealand team in the first game of a three-match series. The team travelled to New Zealand in the following year and this competition continued until 1982 when the Oceania Women’s Football Confederation was formed and the first Oceania Women’s Championship was held in 1983 and shared amongst the competing countries. The next tournament was four years later in New Zealand followed by Australia hosting in 1989. During this time, the team had to rely on ill-fitting men’s team hand me downs for their playing kits and it wasn’t until 1996 that they secured their first sponsorship deal.

In 1988 FIFA organised a tournament which was aimed at ‘testing the water’ for a Women’s World Cup tournament. The tournament was a great success and in 1991, the inaugaral FIFA Women’s World Cup was held, however, the competition was called “1st FIFA World Chanpionship for Women’s Football for the M&M Cup’. Australia did not qualify for this tournament having lost the Oceania Cup to New Zealand, however they did qualify for the next three tournaments (1995, 1999 and 2003) via the Oceania qualifiers and then joined the Asia qualifiers to qualify for subsequent tournaments.

In the lead up to the 1995 tournament, SBS ran a competition to give the team a better name than ‘the Female Socceroos’ which is what they had been known as until then. The winning name was ‘the Matildas’ and this was then used to promote the team and has seen them become one of the most popular national teams in Australia although it is reported that the team took some time to warm to the name.

The Matilda’s improved with each tournament and despite an early exit from the Sydney Olympics, their popularity helped to raise the profile of the game. Following the Sydney Olympics and a change of Coach, the retirement several players and the AWSA going into liquidation, the team was able to rebuild and qualified for the 2004 Olympics which was held in Greece, however, they failed to qualify for the following two Olympics but were back for the 2016 and 2020 Games where they finished 7th and 4th respectively. The Matildas compete in many tournaments around the world each year and the records show that they finish in the top 4 in most of those competitions. Their 4th place in the current World Cup is their best result for that competition to date and is a long way from being 12th in the first World Cup they competed in back in 1995.

Well done Matildas and well done to all the teams and the organisers of the 2023 Women’s World Cup!

This story was written by Kathy Punter and Val Buchanan.

Sources: UK National Archives – History’s Lionesses: The British Ladies Football Team and the beautiful game in 1895 Wednesday 16 August 2023 Jessica Gregory and Vicky Iglikowski-Broad; Football Australia – The History of Women’s Football in Australia; Football Australia – How the Matildas got their name; Wikipedia – Australian women’s national soccer team; British Library – The history of women’s football in the UK; The F A Heritage – The Story of Women’s Football in England;