Australia Women's National Association Football Team - History

History

The first Australian women's national team was formed in 1978, four years after the Australian Women’s Soccer Association, to play in the inaugural World Women’s Invitational Tournament, in Taipei, Taiwan. The team was made up primarily of players from New South Wales and Western Australia. Australia was the only national team at the tournament, thus none of the matches were counted as official caps. Coached by Jim Selby, the players that year were: Sandra Brentnall (WA), Connie Byrnes (captain, NSW), Julie Clayton (WA), Kim Coates (NSW), Julie Dolan (NSW), Cindy Heydon (NSW), Barbara Kozak (WA), Sharon Loveless (WA), Toni McMahon (NSW), Sue Monteath (QLD), Sharon Pearson (NSW), Judy Pettitt (WA), Anna Senjuschenko (WA), Teresa Varadi (WA), Leigh Wardell (NSW), Monika Werner (VIC).

Early matches for the team were generally against New Zealand as one of the better organised nations in the region. It would appear that Australia's first "official" international match was against New Zealand at Seymour Shaw Park, Miranda, New South Wales, Australia on Saturday 6 October 1979, as it was billed as "1st Australian Womens International Soccer Test". The Australian team shown on the programme was Sue Monteith (Qld), Shona Bass (Vic), Kim Coates (Vic), Dianna Hall (SA), Carla Grims (SA), Fiana McKenzie (SA), Sandra Brentnall (WA), Judith Pettit (WA), Sharon Mateljan (WA), Julie Clayton (WA), Cindy Heydon (NSW), Julie Dolan (NSW), Toni McMahon (NSW), Jamie Rosman (NSW), Rosie van Bruinessen (NSW), Leigh Wardell (NSW), Coach was James Selby and the managers were Noelene Stanley and Elaine Watson. Australia played in the first Oceania Cup in 1983, losing the final to New Zealand in extra time. The 1986 tournament in New Zealand was only three teams: Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan, Australia again losing in the final.

Read more about this topic:  Australia Women's National Association Football Team

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.
    Titus Livius (Livy)

    We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?
    Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.
    Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)