A large mural adorns the walls of the Narrabundah Oval clubhouse in Canberra. On one wall is the visage of Kat Yuile, president of new all-women club South Canberra FC (also here on Instagram), while another shows South Canberra player Jemima Turner. The mural predates South Canberra but is a powerful symbol and a natural drawing point for its players.
The club – which has no ties with the South Canberra Futsal organisation – was only formed during the most recent Canberra football off-season, but there are already plans to field five teams (State League one through four and Masters) in 2021, its inaugural season.
This is a club with purpose, vision, clarity in values and impassioned club members – little wonder the club is acting as a beacon in drawing players to its ranks and offering a safe, welcoming and supportive environment. The Canberra community is picking up on all this, with strong support and backing.
President Kat Yuile spoke recently with Beyond 90 about the new club.
“Emma [Steel, co-founder] and I have been playing together for a number of years [eight] and were both involved in club admin for our previous club [Narrabundah FC]. She floated the idea a few years ago of, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was just a women’s only club?’ And we toyed with it, and I think in the COVID off year, we started thinking a lot more seriously about it, about how we would do it, and what would be the most important values for us. So we thought, ‘Why not? Let’s give it a go.’ And then I think once we told the girls that we were playing with, they were all so excited, and all … bursting with ideas and things that they wanted to do. And so we thought, well, this is a huge groundswell of support, let’s do it, let’s make it work.
“So it’s been amazing. I’ve been doing football admin on committees for 15 odd years, I’ve never been with a group of people this motivated. We’ve got 18 committee members all up. And they were all really engaged and motivated, you know, bright, enthusiastic women. And I think we’re just going to achieve so much.”
“We’ve got three coaches that came across with us from our previous club. One of them is an extremely, highly qualified coach, Carol Harper. She’s got a B license. And then two very dedicated state league coaches, Daniel [Menser] and Blaine [O’Brien]. And they’re almost more excited about this than we are. So they form a coaching team.
“With the leadership team, we’ve got myself and Emma obviously, and our vice-president, Amy [Crowe]. But I think everybody on the committee has picked up a bit of a leadership role in promoting the club and bringing girls across and making sure our values are embodied in everything that we do. So it’s a very strong team.”
The values of the new club are key to what they are about.
“Aside from having a club that values women, one of the things that was most important to us was a club that values every single team. Often you find with the clubs that have a premier league team, a lot of resources and time goes into those teams, and their community league girls are left behind. So one of the most important things for us to do, every single team gets the same equipment, resources, coaching, everything; everybody’s important. So that was one of the biggest values that we’ve put forward.”
In line with this thinking, the club has no ambition to play in the Capital Football NPLW competition, being entirely focused on state/community league and Masters teams.
“Certainly something that we might look to do is, find an NPL club that we think aligns with our values that we can direct our stronger young players to … but it’s definitely not something that we would like to do. It just takes the focus away, and it’s a huge amount of work as well and money, and it’s not within [our] scope at the moment. We are happy to support the girls that move up though.”
Establishing the right culture in a new club is also important, and goes hand in hand with the question of values.
“At each training session, we gather the girls around and have a bit of a chat about respecting everybody. So respect to each and every player that’s on the pitch with you, regardless of skill or talent, supporting one another as we train and as we play, and just making sure that we call out any kind of nasty sort of bitchy behaviour quickly, because it’s not what we’re about, and we don’t want it.
“Emma and I felt very strongly that we needed to set that tone early, and make our expectations really, really clear. So it’s mostly about respect and inclusiveness, that’s the big thing. Because I think, for a lot of women, particularly my age, you’re coming back from maybe having a baby or you’ve got families, lots of other commitments. So your time at football has to be fun, it has to be worthwhile. So it’s really important to us that we provide that environment.”
Inspiration for creating the club also came from various clubs, not all of them in football.
“The one that we first looked at was Darebin Falcons (VFLW) in Melbourne, I think mainly from Emma because she’s a Melbourne girl. But definitely we also looked overseas at the English clubs and what other people are doing, and this group on Instagram called Romance FC that we follow as well.”
The planning that has gone into the club also very much extends to marketing, branding, and merchandising, with committee member and graphic designer Ali Maddalena instrumental in creating the look of the graphics and jerseys … with an eye to forthcoming merchandise.
“[Ali]’s amazing. She’s done all the branding, all the logos, everything. So I think I get in trouble a fair bit for doing things that’s not in the right font [laughs]. It looks very professional.
“Especially in the last month, there’s been a lot to do and a lot to push through, and we’re planning a launch as well at the end of March. We were trying to pick off what are the most important things to do right now. So grading [Feb 23 & 25] and making sure our teams are set up for the seasons [are] probably very big, but merch is a lot of fun [laughs]. There’s a lot of us that really enjoy the gear and get right into it. So I think that’s probably something that we will do just because we love it. So yeah, one thing at a time, but I strongly suspect that merch will happen sooner rather than later, because we all just really enjoy it.
“[Ali] came up with something like 15 different [jersey] designs. She was incredibly patient; you’ve got 16 or 15 very opinionated women saying what they want. And then as a committee, all voted on what was the final design. And I think it’s absolutely brilliant.”
You may also notice the colourful footballs that are part of several of the images above.
“Park SSC do lots of really good stuff in the community. So we’ve purchased all our balls through them in their Pass The Ball project (How Has Soccer Impacted The World – PARK SSC). Depending on which ball you buy, they will donate one to the local community in need of soccer balls. So all of our training balls and match balls are through them. Once we’ve identified a local group that needs equipment, we will donate those resources.”
Another drawcard for players is the accompanying women’s programmes which are enabled thanks to the club’s connections with the wider community, who have been enthusiastic about partnering with the new venture. Some of these programmes would not often be seen at the community/state league level.
“We’ve made some really good connections, Helen from Even Playing Field reached out; we’ve had a chat about what we can kind of do to work together because she does a lot of work scouting female-specific kits and boots, and all that sort of stuff. We’re also working really closely with SportsTec Clinic in Kingston. They’re the physios that look after Canberra United. They’ll be running for us a strengthening and conditioning program that’s specifically for female football players – so trying to avoid snapping your ACL and all those injuries that are more common for women.
“There are also local boxing sessions with Beth Kate who’s a boxing PT instructor, those are a lot of fun. I mean, they hurt a lot [laughs], but they’re a lot of fun. And then a few other local businesses (such as The Warehouse in Kingston) have reached out asking if they can be involved, which is really, really cool.”
As a women-only football club, there is also recognition that there may be times in a player’s life when they need to step away for a while … or perhaps they are starting out as a player later in life.
“Absolutely. If I think about our playing group at the moment, it’s so diverse, you’ve got girls in all sorts of different jobs, all sorts of different ages, you know, very different skill levels, but all coming together to do something that they enjoy.
“I think if you can provide that safe welcoming space, then they’ll love it, they’ll come back and you do engender this real sense of community which is really, really special. I’ve certainly found in some of the trickier times of my life, that’s been my happy place. Yes, so I want that for everybody else.”
South Canberra FC training sessions are currently split between Narrabundah and Phillip ovals.
“It’s a little bit tricky at the moment because we’ve got all our gear in a shipping container at Phillip. We’re going between the two because there’s not quite enough space at Narrabundah … but we’re pretty keen to stay there at Narrabundah [where the mural is] if we can.”
With the enthusiasm and planning that’s gone into this new club, 2021 will be a season to remember for all the busy bees at South Canberra FC, and Beyond 90 wishes them all the best for their future.
Read other Beyond 90 Community Football tales here.
