Steph Catley: ‘I never wanted leadership to change who I am as a person’

This story is part of the March 3 edition of Sunday Life.See all 11 stories.

Steph Catley was six years old when she had the distinct feeling she’d found her calling. Each week, she’d follow her older brother, Dan, to soccer training and – not being part of the team – would run up and down the sidelines copying what the boys were doing and showing off her skills on the ball.

Unable to participate in a girls’ team (even in 2000, no such thing existed at that club, East Bentleigh), a decision was made to “throw her in with the boys” despite her participation being anomalous in the minds of the other parents.

“As soon as I started playing and learnt some new skills I felt like I’d found my place,” Catley, who signed with Arsenal FC in England’s Women’s Super League in 2020, tells Sunday Life. “It was exactly where I needed to be. I absolutely fell in love with the game.”

It was a time that would prove momentous for not only Catley but the trajectory of women’s football in Australia. As host country, the Sydney Olympics granted the Matildas their first shot at an Olympic gold medal and their participation prompted a flow of government funding the women’s national team had not seen before.

Catley remained in the boys’ team until she was 13, when she was selected for her first state-level representative team before making her debut in the W-League for Melbourne Victory just two years later. But those formative years epitomised what is true for so many who’ve dared to dream outside the box: perseverance, rather than fate, forges the path for what is possible.

More than two decades on, it’s hard to deny the status of the Matildas and the profound role regular vice captain Catley, alongside teammates including captain Sam Kerr, Mary Fowler and Mackenzie Arnold, played in raising the women’s game. Following a history-making 2023 FIFA World Cup campaign in which they finished fourth on home soil – including a nail-biting 17-minute penalty shootout against France, the longest in World Cup history, to get them through to the semi-final – an entire generation of girls and boys have bolder ambitions.

“I had tears in my eyes most of the time when we were driving to those games in Australia,” says, Catley recalling the bus rides from hotel to stadium.

Always in the same seat at the back, with Ellie Carpenter always in the row in front, to her left (“We got into some pretty big superstitions during the tournament”), Catley admits the overwhelming emotion was unlike anything she’d experienced.

Dress by Zara, earrings by Seed Heritage, rings by Noah the Label. Credit: Emily Delphine

“There was so much to see outside – the streets were lined with green and gold, fans were wearing jerseys with ‘Kerr’ and ‘Carpenter’ on their backs. It felt like all of Australia had stopped what they were doing just to watch and support us,” she says.

Catley overcame numerous injury setbacks in the lead-up to the World Cup, yet you wouldn’t have known, with the poised set-piece specialist stepping up to take penalties with the weight of the nation on her shoulders.

Being a female footballer in this country once meant playing in front of a couple of hundred people. Now, the Matildas are consistently selling out stadiums, participation at club level is growing quickly and increased commitments to grassroots funding are being pledged at a state and federal level.

When Catley appears for our interview via Zoom, she’s just wrapped her Sunday Life photo shoot and is heading home to the home she shares with fiancé and fellow professional footballer Dean Bouzanis in St Albans, on London’s northern outskirts.

It’s a drizzly evening and her arrival is met with the excitable pitter-patter of Calvin, Catley’s two-year-old labradoodle.

“It’s the best feeling in the world, isn’t it?” the 30-year-old says of the four-legged greeting, bringing Calvin into the frame.

In a matter of days, Catley will be released from her club, Arsenal, to travel to Dubai for international duty with her national teammates before the first of two Olympic qualifiers, in Uzbekistan and Melbourne respectively. (Since the interview, the Matildas have won both qualifiers, booking a spot to Paris 2024.)

Coat by Harris Tapper. Turtleneck by COS. Briefs by Zara. Boots by Ganni. Earrings by Seed Heritage. Rings by Noah the Label.Credit: Emily Delphine

Catley, who is again captaining the Matildas following Kerr’s season-ending knee injury, exudes the self-confidence typical of a professional athlete. But she also possesses the refreshing quality of inspiring hope in others.

Catley’s early life in the Melbourne suburb of Bentleigh East was modest, but filled with love. A family of four with at least one or two pet corgis at any given time, Catley was a tomboy who copied everything her brother did. Sports, the outdoors and watching her beloved St Kilda in the AFL each week – particularly midfielder Lenny Hayes – stipulated her childhood.

“We definitely were not a rich family – and it wasn’t always easy,” Catley recalls. “Mum and Dad worked full time and at times my dad was unemployed, so that left Mum trying to work for the whole family to keep us afloat.

“For most school trips, football trips, whatever it was, we were always trying to fundraise or figure out a way we could do it.”

Catley credits her mother, Lesley, for instilling in her a strong sense of self-belief early on.

“From a young age she put so much trust in me and believed in my independence and decision-making,” says Catley. “I was driving myself to be a better footballer every single day and she saw the work I was putting in.

“She would finish work late and drive me to training sessions and tournaments all over Victoria each weekend not because football was something she thought I’d still be doing in the future but because I loved it so much.”

At 20, Catley signed with the Portland Thorns in the US after five successful years at Melbourne Victory. The transition to living independently abroad wasn’t always easy but in moments of adversity her mother’s influence came to the fore.

“When you’re away from your family, you have a lot of time to reflect on how much they mean to you and how important they are in your life.”

STEPH CATLEY, MATILDAS CO-CAPTAIN

“When you’re away from your family, you have a lot of time to reflect on how much they mean to you and how important they are in your life,” she says. “It was a shock to the system but Mum set me up to do well.”

As millions of Australians followed the Matildas’ magical World Cup campaign, they also tuned in to Disney’s documentary, Matildas: The World at Our Feet. The six-part series is an intimate look at the national team’s journey to the 2023 World Cup, with fly-on-the-wall access to training camps, strategy meetings, pre- and post-game pep talks and one-on-one interviews with players such as Catley and Kerr and coach Tony Gustavsson.

It is also an exploration of some of the universal themes of womanhood: belonging, resilience and friendship. We meet midfielder Katrina Gorry, who rejoins the team after giving birth to her first child via IVF, something she decided to do on her own after years of longing to be a mother. We also hear from Kerr – one of the greatest strikers in the world – who recalls her mischievous teen years, revealing that she was asked to leave school in year 9.

Combining motherhood with being a world-class footballer – or any profession, for that matter – and valuing yourself even when those in positions of power don’t, are messages seldom absorbed without role models showing the way.

Suit by Ganni. Credit: Emily Delphine

Catley understands this better than most. “I do look back and think it’s sad that I wasn’t able to watch female athletes, whether that be AFL or any kind of sport. It was never on the TV for me as a young girl to think, ‘That’s what I want to do. She’s amazing – that’s who I want to be.’”

Despite the Matildas’ 2023 World Cup campaign smashing TV ratings – their semi-final against England became the most-watched television program in over 20 years, reaching more than 11 million people nationally – Catley highlights the “outrageous” disparity in pay and prize pool money as well as the inequality that still exists domestically among male and female players.

“There needs to be another step up in the level of support at club level in Australia to ensure female players can show what they’re capable of as athletes.”

STEPH CATLEY, MATILDAS CO-CAPTAIN

“There needs to be another step up in the level of support at club level in Australia to ensure female players can show what they’re capable of as athletes,” she says, highlighting accessibility to pitches, gyms and medical staff. “Now there’s this viewership that wasn’t there before and there’s this expectation of players to be at a certain level and to play a certain amount of games.

“Support for that level of demand still isn’t there, not at the capacity there is in the men’s game.”

As co-captain of the Matildas, Catley reflects on her own legacy. “I’d never ask a teammate to do anything that I wouldn’t do,” she says. “I want to be known as one of the hardest workers, someone you can always rely on. Someone who’s approachable but brave in tense moments.”

She adds: “I’ve never wanted leadership to change who I am as a person.”

As for what she’d tell that six-year-old girl running up and down the sidelines who dared to dream?

“Take a breath, trust the process and enjoy it,” she says, confessing that she was always her own harshest critic growing up. “Know you are working hard and doing the right things, know you are a good person, and appreciate the moment instead of looking for the next record to break.”

THE TRAILBLAZERS

From out of the soccer field and into the worlds of entertainment, activism and fashion, here are nine impressive women who have also inspired us over the last year.

Marcia Langton - Academic and activist

Credit: Tim Bauer

Marcia Langton once said she sticks to an approach summed up by the saying “The world is run by those who show up”. And show up she has over the 50 years since she first became an Indigenous rights activist at the University of Queensland in the late 1960s.

At 72, Langton is the great-great-granddaughter of survivors of the frontier massacres and a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara people of Queensland, but more so, she’s a formidable force in Australian public life. She has imparted her wisdom to prime ministers ranging from Paul Keating to Scott Morrison and has worked on some of the most significant pieces of legislation affecting Indigenous people, from the Native Title Act to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report on the stolen generations.

In 1999, she was one of five Indigenous leaders who were granted an audience with Queen Elizabeth II where they discussed reconciliation, and the continuing impact of colonisation on their communities. Last year, she was a dogged campaigner for the Yes vote and despite the outcome, she continues to be a powerful voice for Indigenous recognition.

Nagi Maehashi - Cook and social media star

Credit: Rob Palmer

RecipeTin Eats aka Nagi Maehashi has cooked up a storm during the past year, stirring things up both in and out of the kitchen. There’s no end to our appetite for her record-breaking debut cookbook Dinner which was the country’s best-selling title in 2023 and won Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. Published in 2022, it has now sold over 440,000 copies

Maehashi, who was born in Japan and raised in Sydney, where she now lives, left her career in corporate finance to chase her culinary dreams, launching the food blog RecipeTin Eats in 2014. The self-taught cook creates, writes and photographs all her recipes and films video tutorials with a focus on fast, clever, creative and fresh ideas (give the 20-minute Thai chicken satay curry a crack). The website now attracts more than 350 million page views per year and Maehashi and her equally trailblazing golden retriever Dozer have more than six million followers on social media.

She also runs RecipeTin Meals, a not-for-profit food bank that supplies more than 100,000 meals annually to disadvantaged communities. We’re excited to see what Maehashi cooks up next.

Jackie “O” Henderson - Radio host

Credit: Louie Douvis

From humble beginnings 30 years ago as Triple M’s phone girl in Adelaide, Jackie “O” Henderson is now one of Australia’s most successful media identities.

Since 1999, she has worked alongside Kyle Sandilands (an impressive feat in itself), the duo forming an on-air partnership that has seen them dominate radio. Such is their power that in November 2023, the pair signed a 10-year $200 million contract in which both Henderson and Sandilands get a base salary of $10 million a year. This deal has reputedly made Henderson the highest-paid woman in Australian media.

At 49 and as a single mother to 12-year-old daughter Kitty, whom she shares with ex-husband Lee Henderson, she is a strong, independent woman happy living life on her terms. In early 2023, Henderson made her health and wellbeing a priority and now boasts a lifestyle centred on “cold showers, meditation, exercise and eating healthily”. We love to see it.

Hannah Diviney - Disability advocate

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Writer Hannah Diviney may only be 24 years old, but she’s already making a huge impact as a disability activist. Diviney, who has spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, is the editor of Missing Perspectives, a publication dedicated to creating space for young female storytellers.

She’s also made global headlines taking on pop superstars Beyoncé and Lizzo, holding them to account for using ableist slurs in their songs. Her actions saw both chart-topping singers change their lyrics.

Diviney broke new ground in 2023 by starring in the SBS series Latecomers, which portrayed a rarely seen depiction of sex and disability. She also released her powerful book I’ll Let Myself In, documenting her journey as a young woman determined to forge her own path in a world.

Diviney is also behind a global campaign encouraging Disney to create a disabled Disney princess. “Representation is the most important thing in the world,” she told ABC radio. “Without it, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of equating the fact that you don’t see yourself anywhere with this idea that you shouldn’t be in the world.”

Michele Bullock - Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia

Credit: Louie Douvis

Michele Bullock made history last year becoming the Reserve Bank’s first female governor. She first joined the bank in 1985, after interning there during the honours year of her economics degree from the University of New England, and has spent her entire 38-year career working her way up until she crashed through the glass ceiling and snared the top job.

A self-described “country girl”, Bullock was born in Melbourne but moved to Armidale in regional NSW when she was nine. She had the opportunity to study medicine at the University of NSW but turned it down, choosing economics at her local university instead. It turned out to be a wise move.

Taking on the governor role during such tricky economic times is a testament to her tenacity. “I have always taken the view that if opportunities present themselves, you should have a crack,” she said. “For me, it has always been about just getting new experiences and enjoying what I’m doing, and part of that is not being afraid to take a step somewhere different.”

Micaela Cronin - National Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner

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With two in five Australian women having experienced violence from the age of 15 and, on average, one woman a week being murdered by her current or former partner, domestic violence is a critical issue in this country. And it’s a crisis Micaela Cronin has seen firsthand, having started her career as a social worker in family violence and sexual assault services.

In November 2022, she became the inaugural Domestic, Family, and Sexual Violence Commissioner. It’s worth noting that Australia is one of only three countries to have such a position.

Since her appointment, Cronin has been vocal in pushing for the stories of those who have been impacted by domestic violence to be heard as an integral part of the solution. “If we are to achieve the goal of ending violence against women and children, then we must ensure that the voices of those who have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence are deeply listened to and meaningfully engaged,” she says. Hear hear.

Yael Stone - Actor and climate activist

Credit: Alex Vaughan

Yael Stone first came to our attention playing the glamorous inmate, Lorna Morello, in Orange Is the New Black. With her Brooklyn-meets-Boston accent, it came as a surprise to many that Stone was born in Sydney.

But the actor shocked fans even further on January 7, 2020, when she announced her intention to give up her US green card and return to live permanently in Australia. It was midway through the devastating summer of bushfires and Stone had found a new calling, campaigning for climate protection – or the “climate war”, as she called it.

Since giving up the bright lights of Hollywood and returning home, the 38-year-old has become the founding director of not-for-profit organisation Hi Neighbour. It’s focused on supporting the transition from fossil fuels to renewables by working with local communities to lower emissions through the installation of solar panels on business rooftops. The money raised is then funnelled back into creating opportunities for local workers to retrain in low-carbon jobs. Stone is letting the world know that green is the new black – and we’re here for it.

Margot Robbie - Producer and actor

Credit: Getty

Margot Robbie has been working in Hollywood for just a decade: her breakthrough role was playing Naomi Lapaglia, the wife of stockbroker Jordan Belfort, in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 satire The Wolf of Wall Street. But in that time she has quietly helped build a formidable production house that already has two Oscars to its name.

Founded in 2014, Robbie’s company LuckyChap Entertainment has since produced many of the films in which Robbie has starred, including I, Tonya in 2017, Birds of Prey in 2020 and, of course, Barbie in 2023.

Robbie, 33, has also co-produced both of Emerald Fennell’s critically acclaimed films – the 2020 Oscar winner Promising Young Woman and one of this year’s most talked about films, Saltburn.

And she’s not planning to rest on her laurels. LuckyChap’s core philosophy is originality. “But the thing about being original is that you can’t do the thing that worked before,” Robbie says. “As much as we’re trying to celebrate the moment we’re in right now, our minds immediately go to what’s next.”

Lesleigh Jermanus - Fashion designer

Credit: Eddie Jim

The fashion world can be a wasteland of dour black clothing and unsmiling models but designer Lesleigh Jermanus is bringing light and joy with her brand Alémais.

It might be Jermanus’s bright Brisbane background, or her label’s playful palette of burnt oranges, acid lemons and sunburnt pinks intermingling on quirky prints, but the optimistic approach is paying off. Last year, Alémais opened Australian Fashion Week before launching a pop-up in Harvey Nichols’ flagship London store.

Comparisons are drawn between the rise of Alémais and equally uplifting Australian fashion powerhouse Zimmermann, where Jermanus once worked (one of many behind-the-scenes jobs she held over the course of 20 years). Sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann launched their business on the international landscape, setting a blueprint for Jermanus and her husband, retail veteran Chris Buchanan.

Alémais now has 250 international stockists, including Selfridges, Net-a-Porter and Saks Fifth Avenue, in 40 countries. But Jermanus is eager to blaze her own trail. With its focus on sustainability – using fabrics made from regenerative plants, organic cotton and recycled sequins – and offsetting the carbon emissions of its runway shows, Alémais is leaving the world a better and brighter place.

Steph Catley shoot: Styling by Emmerson Conrad; Hair and make-up by Emily Collins.

Trailblazer text: Michael Idato, Melanie Kembrey, Genevieve Quigley, Damien Woolnough.

STOCKISTS COS; Ganni; Harris Tapper; Harris Tapper (UK) from Denton House; Noah the Label; Seed Heritage; Zara.

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