State netball champion Louise Small joins SA Football Commission as moves Roache over for Moody

SA Football Commission elected Norwood Football Club director Bill Moody as the newest member of SA football’s highest administrative forum.

SA football’s original ceiling breaker, June Roache, has lost her seat on the SA Football Commission.

Norwood Football Club director Bill Moody is the new member of SA football’s highest administrative forum.

Moody and Peter Lindner, who was standing for re-election, earned the SANFL league directors’ vote on Wednesday night. They have been handed three-year terms on the commission.

Roache, the sister of SA football legend Malcolm Blight, lost her seat by one vote to Moody. In 2015, the former SA Lotteries boss became the first woman appointed to the commission that had been a male-dominated forum from its start in 1991.

The commission now has just one female voice - former SA netball champion Louise Small.

The SANFL on Wednesday morning made Small the third woman to claim a commission seat after another netball great Jane Woodlands-Thompson resigned with a year to serve.

Woodlands-Thompson has stepped away from the commission - after three years on the SA football’s controlling panel - because of her growing obligations in Melbourne. She is the Collingwood Football Club’s first general manager of women’s sport in charge of the Magpies’ AFLW and national netball program.

Collingwood’s general manager of women’s sports Jane Woodlands Thompson. Picture: Adam Trafford/AFL Media

June Roache, the first woman on the SA Football Commission. Picture: Simon Cross

Small’s appointment ensures the SA Football Commission will have at least one female voice.

The first ceiling breaker, June Roache, will have her seat on the commission determined by an election with the SANFL league delegates on Wednesday evening.

Roache and fellow commissioner Peter Lindner are up for re-election with one challenger to their two seats - from the Norwood Football Club.

Roache in 2015 became the first woman appointed to the commission that had been a male-dominated forum from its start in 1991.

Small joins the commission with a strong background in netball - as a premiership captain with the Matrics State league team and tenure as an assistant coach with the Thunderbirds team. But she also has a noted interest in Australian football with work at the Adelaide Football Club in womens player development.

Small also brings a strong business resume, currently in the building industry, to the commission table - and a major understanding of community issues from her experiences as a former chairperson as scosa (the South Australian organisation helping those with physical and intellectual disabilities).

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