The Good Ole Days

As a child in Morecambe our home backed onto the playing fields used by various schools and sports clubs. It was wonderful to have this lovely green area to run around on but my favourite recreation was playing football with all the local boys. I must have spent hours out there and football came to be a great pleasure.(Football is called soccer in Australia)
Fast forward to the early seventies and going to watch Kwinana United Soccer Club with Dad, watching (male) classmates train and play on Sunday mornings my (female) friends and I were thrilled when Bob Clark offered to set up a women's team and coach us. I played in this team for 3 seasons until surgery on my heels put paid to that. We successfully changed the rule at Kwinana High School regarding school sports and were permitted to play soccer with the boys as our weekly sports lesson, there were about 6 of us from memory.

My former next door neighbour, Nick Knight, recently started a facebook page for Kwinana's soccer history, our photos and memories are re-surfacing after over 40 years of being just dreams...

Back: Carol Hill, Sue Chivers, Elaine Hadden, Lynda Palmer, Yvonne Knee(dec), Brigitta Neilson, Deb(?), Irene(?), Bob Clark(coach)
Front: Julie Tatton, Julie Brown, Cathy O'Hara, Lynn Scothern, Joanne Ryder, Eleanor Smith, Pat Campbell, Sue Gardner(self) 1972

Then we made the newspaper!

Diane Shirra, Yvonne Knee, Maryanne O'Donnell, Frances Shirra, Jill Syson, Julie Tatton, Caron Knee, Sue Chivers, Carol Hill and Cathy Gallagher.

This photo must have been the last year I played, 1973. We played an exhibition match at the Perth Velodrome before a main (men's) match. The velodrome was the old cycle racing venue and had a wooden track running around the pitch. The ball went off the field in front of the packed grandstand and my boots slid on the wet wood, plonking me on my bottom! I'm glad my face was already red from my exertions on the pitch!

Back: Carol Hill, Cathy Gallagher, Dianne Shirra, Ruth Knee, Sue Gardner
Front: Sue Chivers, Frances Shirra, Jill Syson, Maryanne O'Donnell, Yvonne Knee and ???

Several of the team were chosen for the State Women's Squad and played a few matches, Carol, Sue, Pat and Julie I believe. I was told I was on stand-by for the squad but never got the call. My main claim to fame is that I scored the first ever goal for Kwinana United Ladies Team and you can't take that away from me!

I hope to add photos to this post as they become available.

Did you play sport as child/teen? These were truly some of the happiest days of my life.

Love from Sue

If you've ever considered starting your own blog or just want to brush up on your skills Rhonda has written a wonderful and helpful article today called "Blogging for Beginners" Part 1. She's also doing workshops on blogging in her area of Queensland.

PS Juds, make sure you read the comments again on my previous post, Lynda was tickled pink!