Ascot Girls Soccer Team joined the Girls Soccer Association in the Association’s second year, 1973 and were one of the most prominent teams in the 1970’s and 1980’s, winning numerous League Championships and boasting multiple state and national representatives.
You may have seen a version of the following article published by Ben Smith in the Perth Now newspaper, in December 2023.
ASCOT GIRLS SOCCER REUNION
Sunday November 5, 2023
2023 was an amazing year of football in Australia, hosting Australia’s first ever Women’s World Cup and first ever Olympic Qualifying Tournament, selling out stadiums across Australia, blitzing broadcast numbers across the world and breaking attendance records locally.
In November this year, a group of women reunited after 50 years, inspired by an incredible groundswell of support for the Matildas, a common passion for football and thanks to the hard work of inaugural team member Jill Grey (formerly Syson).
The Ascot Girls Soccer Team joined the Western Australian Girls Soccer Association in 1973, one year after the competition’s inauguration in Perth. The team, coached by Syd Smith, attracted the best of the best, the youngest of the youngest, and won just about everything there was to win in their first 3 years.
If you have been on some of the local women’s soccer social pages in the World Cup Year, you may have recognised names and faces such as Jude Pettitt, who appeared in the Channel 10 TV ad promoting the Matilda’s Asian Cup Qualifiers held in Perth and Janice Stott, who received her National Team Cap at the Optus Stadium when the Matildas played the Philippines National Team in November.
Did you know that football (called soccer here until it was renamed ‘football’ in 2005) was banned for 50 years across England and the countries of the Commonwealth, from the 1920’s through to the 1970’s? Girls were not allowed to play football. This, even though during the war years when males playing the sport were scarce, ladies took to the field in front of thousands of eager spectators in England, only to be told upon our gallant soldiers return, that football is not for ladies.
Fast forward to the 1970’s, when the ban was lifted and a lot of pioneering and hard work was undertaken by women who simply wanted to play sport, showed they were good at it and deserved their share. Tournaments started to sprout out all over the Commonwealth, including Australia. From a single division competition in 1972 in WA, to a multi-tiered and regional network of competitions across WA in 2023 with 10,000 females now participating in Western Australian competitions and 2 million Australia wide. Perth’s Optus Stadium sold out its 60,000 seats for an Olympic Qualifying match between the Matildas and Philippines, in front of which, Sara King, Lizzy Claydon and Janice Stott (yes that’s Ascot’s Janice Stott in the photo below) received their Australian Caps for representing the nation.
If you recognise some of the fresh faces in the black and white photo, you wouldn’t be wrong. Matildas Alumni, Sharon Loveless (top left), Jude Pettitt (third from left top), Janice Stott (top right), WA State Representative Martha McManus (bottom left), Matildas Alumni Julie Gorton, formerly Clayton (bottom second from left), and Donna Gorton, formerly Pendreigh (middle bottom row), all represented Australia in international tournaments throughout the 1970s and 1980’s.
Some of Western Australia’s most famous and internationally known Matildas received their caps in quiet ceremonies after international tours, back here in Australia over the last few decades. Before the Matildas reached the level of professionalism we know today, there was semi-professional leagues, part time footballers, work, family and part time study commitments that distracted the most ambitious and dedicated players.
Included amongst WA’s footballing pioneers and recognised across Australia and the world are Sandra Brentnall, Sharon Loveless, Sam Kerr, Tracey Wheeler, Lydia Williams, Lisa DeVanna and Collette MacCallum. You can see WA does it’s fair share of adding to the National talent pool.
When Ascot reunited in November 2023, after 50 years, there was a lot of reflections on how far football has travelled in those 50 years. There were shared memories of State Team tours to National Championships, where the WA state team was heavily influenced by Ascot, to Thailand for the World Tournament in 1978, where Western Australia’s Anna Senjuschenko (Inglewood Kiev) was selected in an all-star world 11, and to India in 1980 for an Asian Cup, where the WA Team played in front of 30,000 spectators. All of these representative teams drew heavily on Ascot’s playing stocks right into the mid 1980s. Ascot merged with Ferndale in the late 1980’s, ending one of the most successful club era’s in Western Australian women’s football.
The modern version of those National Championships, is the A League, which has emerged as the new breeding ground for Australia’s best young players and selection of talent for our National teams. Players are flown under enterprise agreements with their teams across the country and footage is streamed around the country and world.
Things have changed in 50 years, and Ascot player, Janice Stott was able to experience just a little bit of that at Optus Stadium in front of 60,000 fans in November, when she received her cap for representing Australia in 1983 (photo at Optus courtesy Football Australia).
Who would have thought 50 years ago women’s soccer would come this far?
Article written by Penelope Hoath.
Photos left to right.
Ascot B Girls Soccer team 1976 Courtesy: Martha McManus
Ascot A Girls SC team 1970s. Courtesy Syd Smith
Colour photo of Ascot team at Woodman Point, Perth WA, 2023 taken by Rose-Maree Hoath. Ascot ‘Girls’ Soccer Club Reunion November 2023
Janice Stott receiving her Australian Cap at Perth’s Optus Stadium in front of 60,000 cheering fans. Photo thanks to Football Australia.
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