After feeling like something was missing from the Canberra footballing community, Kathryn Yuile and Emma Steel sought out a way to fill it.
“We have been heavily involved in football for many years,” Kathryn said.
“We found women didn’t get a lot of the focus in mixed gender clubs, so we thought why not branch out and start something new?”
And start something they did; creating South Canberra Football Club, a female only club based in South Canberra.
They have partnered with Canberra physiotherapists at SportsTec Clinic to design tailor-made pre-season programs for women.
“We’re really lucky to have partnered with SportsTec.
“We’ve learnt a lot from the team about female injuries in football – for example women are more likely than men to tear their ACL, and this risk increases when they are breastfeeding or have their period,” she said.
“SportsTec ran a strength and conditioning program for us last year to make sure people were ready to get on the field after the Covid-19 shutdown, and are running it again for us this pre-season in conjunction with fitness/boxing sessions with BK Boxing,”
A few weeks into pre-season and it’s taken off in leaps and bounds.
“I think Canberra needs this.
“The girls are really excited to be part of this initiative.”
“We started with three teams and then one entire team came over from another club. Combined with new players it looks like we will have five teams this year.”
It’s all part of their passion to help forge a gender equal world.
“By building the South Canberra Football Club and community, we hope to provide equity in both access and support to women in Canberra seeking to play football. We know there are many barriers to women participating in sport, and we plan to challenge as many of those as we can.
“Our core values are about inclusiveness, community, fun, trust, support and respect. No matter your background, everybody is of equal value. We’re all about supporting every single player.”