Female participation in footy has continued its meteoric rise over the past decade with a 790 percent increase in women playing AFL in Australia.
And female community teams have grown from 205 to 2540 since 2010.
The high-profile success of AFLW has helped drive overall visibility for women in sport.
To illustrate this point, this year there are 540 AFLW players, making the AFL the largest employer of female athletes in the country.
And at the opposite end of the age spectrum, Western Australia has seen a 3.3 per cent increase in girls’ participation in Auskick since last year, and it’s on track to record a new milestone of 3000 young girls pulling on their boots.
Nowhere is this explosion of popularity more visible in our area than at the Kelmscott Junior Football Club.
The junior Bulldogs boast the largest female football program in the area; this season, they have welcomed 101 girls into the pack. Girls now make up a third of the club’s total membership.
And they’re one of only two clubs in the Metropolitan South who offer girls-only Auskick.
“Our goal is to make it as big as we can – it would be great if it got to 50 percent,” Club President James Linton said.
What makes this success story particularly phenomenal, is that just five years ago, the Bulldogs didn’t even have a single junior girls’ team – any girls in the area who wanted to play footy, and didn’t want to compete with the boys, had to head up the hill to Roleystone.
“The demand was always there, but it was about having a place safe enough and brave enough that could cater to them,” the club’s Female Football Coordinator Danni Beets said.
“The girls go hard on the ball – they’ve got more to prove. But we know we’re all trying to make something great together. So, there’s also a real camaraderie.”
Paige Linton used to play netball, but quickly made the transition to footy when the Bulldogs introduced girls’ teams.
“I love being able to run around, tackle, kick a footy, just like my brothers,” she said.
Paige was one of the inaugural players for Perth in the Rogers Cup last year, and is currently in her third season of WAFL.
In fact, there’s a large contingent of WAFL girls from Kelmscott, including the Rogers Cup leading goal scorer Shante Anderson.
Each girl has her eyes on the AFLW prize. And they all credit their success to the start they got, immersed in the supportive atmosphere at Kelmscott.
“It’s a good environment, a good community,” Paige said.
In fact, each of the girls we spoke to said the same – the club is their family.
For some, that is more literal than metaphoric, with the club welcoming a large number of foster kids into the Bulldogs pack.
“There’s a real community – everyone feels safe and welcome,” Carmen Woods said.
“We’ve got some great coaches, and it’s a really great, inclusive club,” President James Linton said, mentioning the club has just started its Starkick All Abilities Youth Football program.
“And they’re all telling their friends which is the main thing.”
Their retention rate is equally impressive; the OG girls’ team from 2021 have stuck together and have just completed their fixtures in the 7/8 South Metro competition.
And they smashed it. On Sunday they claimed the minor premiership and they remain unbeaten – some of those games were complete shut-outs.
“I feel so proud of the girls because we made it as a team,” Aleeyah Hailwood said.
“It would be so joyous if we won the season undefeated,” Anna Walling-Kulker said.
“And we were promised that if we made the finals, we got to do a Gatorade dump!”
The girls will play the Palmyra Demons in their Qualifying Final this Sunday from 11.30am at Santich Park.
Photographs – Richard Polden.
