From the 7-15 September, all around the country federations and clubs were promoting women’s football, offering activities and introducing potential young stars to the beautiful game.
Helping promote the initiative was NZ Football women’s development manager Maia Jackman.
The former Football Fern, joined by Young Football Fern Evie Millynn, dropped in on an Auckland Football Federation Talent Centre training session early on in the week.
She spoke to AFF about that experience, the Girls and Women’s Week initiative and gave her opinion of the state of the female game in New Zealand.
Can you explain the purpose of Girls and Women’s Week and what the main focus has been?
The biggest thing for us is to try to touch kids who haven’t played football before and give them a taste of it. We’re looking at those who usually play different sports in the winter and giving them an opportunity to see what football is like. We want to make it a bit of fun and give them a good experience. Then we want to get them into the summer leagues which provides them with a fun, girls-only environment to enjoy the game in. From there, hopefully they will join clubs and remain involved. It’s just been about getting out there and making it a fun week of celebrating women’s football as a starter, and then giving those kids that play other sports a taste for football and hoping they like it.
Yourself and Young Football Fern Evie Millynn popped in on Auckland Football’s Federation Talent Centre girls training for a Q and A session. Did you enjoy answering the players’ questions and do you think it proved valuable for them?
It was a really cool experience. It’s a good mixture to have myself and Evie – someone who has already been there and someone who is just about to break into that Football Ferns environment. It gives the girls different perspectives to listen to because we’re at contrasting ends of our journey.
There are lots of different sports and other activities for young women to get involved in. Why do you think they should choose to play football?
I think the biggest pull with football is that it’s played in so many different countries and there’s so many opportunities available in the game that other sports don’t necessarily offer. You’ve got scholarships and professional leagues and, if you do make it into the age-group representative teams and further, then you can see a lot of the world. That’s pretty cool because there’s not many other sports where that’s the case. Only a handful of countries play the likes of netball. The women’s game here is getting a lot of momentum behind it now and I think it’s a good sport to play for a number of different reasons. Like all sports, it’s great for fitness and meeting people.
On the flipside, what do you think might prevent some girls from playing football in this country? Are there any barriers that need to be overcome?
I think that’s where things like the girls summer leagues have a key role to play in terms of making it less daunting. There are a lot of boys that play football and I think most girls would see them playing and feel a little bit apprehensive about joining in. So removing those types of barriers to give them a taste of the game is very important. Obviously, we want the better girls to play with boys for as long as they can but, for those girls who have never really experienced playing before, we want to provide an environment where they can go along with their mates and have a bit of fun. Who knows where they could go from there if they continue in the game.
You’ve been involved with the women’s game in New Zealand over a long period of time, firstly as a player and now on the development side. What changes have you seen in that period and how do you feel about the future of the women’s game here?
It just keeps getting better and better. When I first started, any team you were involved with for your country was very ad hoc. You’d get a call from the coach about a week out saying, ‘We might be going here, can you pay this?’ It’s the complete opposite of that now. And I always played with boys from a young age because there weren’t any girls teams. The amount of girls participating in football now is huge compared to back then and it’s just growing and growing. From grassroots through to high performance, there is now a definite pathway whereas when I first started there wasn’t really one in place. Some of the girls at the Q and A asked who my hero was but I didn’t really have a Katie Hoyle or an Abby Erceg to look up to. So you just had to find male players or females who played for other countries. Now we have all these Football Ferns playing on the world stage and the younger girls have something to aspire to which was never there before.
Story courtesy of Auckland Football
For more on New Zealand football visit www.nzfootball.co.nz.

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