1959 Women's Football coached by J Coleman & L Richards

[Leave it, It's Billy E's]

Hello all,

I have gotten permission to share this great piece of history that was first published recently in our local Hurstbridge and district magazine 'Roundabout'.


The Author -Nan Oates played in the game and was one of the organisers who travelled to John Colemans pub to ask if he would coach!

Please feel free to share this great piece of history. I am going to email the AFL and Essendon.
Nan is going to ask her friends who played on Lou's team if they have photo's and recollections of their team, so hopefully i will be able to post that at some point.

My brush with Women’s Football

This year it has been interesting to read that women’s football is now alive and well and growing, and even better, receiving more recognition in the media. Reading about this has taken me back to my youthful days at Melbourne University in the late 1950’s.

Somehow, I became good friends with some girls due to playing tennis together at Uni. Matches were always on a Saturday morning and after that we would all go to watch the nearest VFLgame. We all barracked passionately for a different club, Collingwood, Carlton, Fitzroy and Essendon. About the worst thing you could yell out to the players then was “Kill the Ump”. I have very fond memories of standing in the drizzle at Victoria Park, a soggy meat pie in one hand and a soggy fag in the other.

I think it was during 1959 that we decided that it would be fun to put together a couple of women’s footy teams from women students from two faculties with umpires and coaches from male students at the time with past or present VFL connections.

The Esssendon fan Lois, had many contacts with the club and knew that at one stage in his life the great John Coleman had done a course through the Commerce faculty. At the time Coleman was licensee of the West Brunswick Hotel so Lois and I trundled out to Brunswick in her VW and asked if we could see John Coleman. He duly appeared and we had to stifle the impulse to swoon, and asked if he would be interested in being the Commerce students coach. This was a couple of years before John actually became Essendon’s coach. To our delight he agreed.

At the same time a couple of the law students approached Lou Richards to be their coach and he agreed also. And so it came to pass that I became one of “Coleman’s Commercial Cuties” lining up against “Lou Lou’s Legal Lovelies”. What a contrast of coaches that was, the rough as guts Lou and the gentlemanly John.

Each side trained in secret with our respective coaches. The umpires were John Birt and Ken Fraser. Coleman’s Cuties wore Essendon Thirds jumpers and Lou Lou’s Lovelies wore University Blues jumpers, and didn’t they stink of liniment!

A date was duly set and it was agreed that we would have four quarters of 10 minutes each. The positions were so different than, and I was relieved to be ‘resting’ in the back pocket’. One of our team had four brothers and she could do a wonderful 60 yard punt kick.

The Cuties won by a narrow margin 1 goal 8 points to the Lovelies 1 goal and 5 points. At that time at the end of a VFL grand Final it was a tradition for the players to swap jumpers with the opposing side so there was much disappointment when we declined to honour this tradition, so we were tossed into the swimming pool instead.

I believe that there is some footage of this game in the National Film & Sound Archives in Canberra.

Nan

I also have the photo's, (which are gold!) but i am having trouble loading them. I did try and previewed the post, but they only came through in downloadable PDF...any help appreciated!

[partypie]

Thanks for posting that, it sounds like they had a lot of fun.

I used to play women's footy, it was hilarious. The best players were indigenous.

[Leave it, It's Billy E's]

i have added the photo file which needs to be down loaded....

[HAL]

Thanks for the information.