Australia’s women’s national team are celebrating their 40th anniversary

Players organised their own promotion for the debut match in 1979

“It’s important that history is recognised”

When Australia took the field at the recent FIFA Women’s World Cup™, they were backed by a large support staff, had the backing of the nation and a barely-believable TV audience, one that even tipped cricket from the top of the broadcast viewership. Such ideas were ludicrous fantasies just four decades ago back when the national team was born on 6 October 1979.

To say the team did things rough back then would be an understatement of epic proportions. Local club Sutherland Sharks in Sydney’s south hosted the team’s first match at their Seymour Shaw with New Zealand the visitors. The main seating consisted of a couple of rows of home-made scaffold planks, the pitch was equally rough-hewn after a long winter of football.

Media interest was almost non-existent. Indeed, marketing, organisation and even kit management was largely the preserve of the players. Some players spent the week prior to the match dropping off flyers at local clubs and in letterboxes. Ultimately just a few hundred people, many of who were friends and family, were in attendance to see the birth of something special.

Players sewed the national crest onto their own shirts, while at least one player prepared for the match with a Saturday morning shift at the local supermarket ahead of the afternoon kick off.

For the record Sandra Brentnall nabbed the historic first ever goal as the Aussies drew 2-2 against the Kiwis sparking a long-standing Down Under rivalry.