Kat Newman saw firsthand the number of girls who one by one stopped playing football during their teenage years. Having played a variety of sports throughout school before joining Belnorth as a 19-year-old, she was saddened to see the drop-off.
So she decided to do something about it.
“As the RooBall Registrar at Belnorth, I have seen more and more girls not continuing to play sport and there is a large dropout rate once they get a bit older,” Kat shared.
“I have always been sporty so I know the benefit of playing sport throughout life. I just wanted to support young children to play football, especially the girls at our club and to encourage them to keep playing throughout their teenage years.”
Aiming to provide more opportunities than just playing, Belnorth and Kat started a variety of options to keep more girls involved.
“We have started to do things like Junior Coaches, where a couple of girls have been coaching junior teams for a few years, so we are trying to get them involved that way as well,” Kat said.
“I am also going to coach our U16s Girls team with the hope that they will play before our Senior Women’s team so we can build that relationship and have a bridge that they can come across.”
Her tireless work behind the scenes has not gone unnoticed, as she was named joint winner of the Senior Club Person of 2019 Award alongside Ben Muir at Belnorth’s Awards Night last year.
“Finding the balance between full-time work and volunteering for the club is tricky sometimes. My husband calls it my unpaid evening job,” she said with a laugh.
“I just want to make sure everyone is having fun playing football and they keep playing throughout their lives.”
Is there someone you would like to acknowledge in our Faces of Football series, presented by Capital Chemist? Fill out this form!