Bayside Leader’s The Grass Ceiling campaign calls on better facilities for girls and women in sport
WOMEN and girls in Melbourne’s south love their sport but they’re often forced to play on second-rate facilities, which is why Leader has launched this campaign.
Inner South
Don't miss out on the headlines from Inner South . Followed categories will be added to My News.
WOMEN’S sport in Bayside has put up with decades of neglect.
Training grounds and courts are crowded and dangerously run-down, and there is just one female change room in Bayside’s 27 pavilions.
Bayside women love their sport. Brighton Soccer Club is the largest provider of junior women’s sport in Australia, with 255 members.
The Sandringham District Netball Association has 6500 members, and has grown by 500 players over the past three years. But:
■ Black Rock Netball Club’s 180 players train on two cracked, undersized courts with broken hoops
■ 190 Sandringham District League players have a forced bye every week due to lack of courts, coaches and funding
■ Brighton Soccer Club had to turn away 100 potential juniors this year
■ Hampton Rovers want to start a senior girls’ footy team, but are unable to, due to a lack of competition-standard facilities
■ Unfair fixturing in mixed sports is common, with women’s teams shunted to Sunday matches and given less game time.
With Bayside’s female participation in organised sport increasing every year, the inequity should not be ignored any longer.
RELATED: Melbourne Vixens netball star Kate Moloney talks about importance of grassroots sport
The Leader today launches The Grass Ceiling campaign calling for a fair go for our sport-loving women and girls.
They deserve proper female changerooms, more courts, better grounds and guaranteed funding, on a par with men’s teams.
Research shows that once young people abandon community sport, it becomes almost impossible to reignite that passion.
And with 25 per cent of Australian children overweight, community sport has never been more important.
Eighty per cent of Bayside’s sporting pavilions in Bayside predate 1960. Most were built at a time when the Government set the female basic wage at 75 per cent of the male wage, and married women could not work in the public service.
Netball, the most popular female grassroots sport, has been hit hardest.
The Black Rock Tigers’ 18 teams (up from 12 teams a year ago) squeeze on to two cracked half-courts for weekly training.
While men brief game strategy and bond in their change rooms, the girls of the Brighton Beach Junior Football Club squeeze into a tiny “women’s” change room with a urinal, while Beaumaris Soccer Club girls don’t even have that — they have to turn up in full kit and pile back into their cars afterwards, dirty and tired.
In coming weeks and months Bayside Leader will profile these and other inspirational female teams and athletes, reveal the inequities that hold them back, and lobby for improvements.
RELATED: Female netball players miss out due to poor quality courts in Bayside
Association forced to turn away potential Diamonds
SANDRINGHAM District Netball Association are turning potential players away at a staggering rate, because they just don’t have the courts to cater for them.
There are 44 ovals in Bayside, but only seven netball courts available when it comes to Australia’s most popular grassroots female sport.
Each week, 190 players are forced to stay home on a bye, while the teams lucky enough to get a game are short-changed with reduced match times and shortened breaks.
Under-15 rep team player Ella Quinlan, 14, said netball is “a great way to make friends” and “meet people from other schools”, but her enjoyment of the sport is hindered by the limited space and times available.
“Every week there are so many byes,” Ella said.
‘They’re so often, it doesn’t make it that much fun.”
Ella has taken an active role in fighting for the local netball association, even writing letters to council campaigning for better lighting and facilities.
SDNA president Alison Horton said the situation was “really disappointing”.
“We have a duty to keep our kids involved in sport,” Ms Horton said.
“We’d like to provide more competitions but we just can’t.”
The president of three years has two daughters playing with the SDNA.
She said working to improve the lot of Bayside netballers had been “an amazing challenge”.
“We’re trying to look at alternatives, but there always seems to be a barrier there,” Ms Horton said.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do next year.”
Sport is biggest loser
SANDRINGHAM Soccer Club leaders find it tough to keep their female players motivated.
Club treasurer Tony Falkingham calls it “one of our biggest challenges”.
“We’re trying to get kids off their bums and off the Xbox,” Mr Falkingham said.
“But it’s a tough ask at the moment.”
There are more than 800 members at Sandringham Soccer Club, but the gap between boys and girls is growing.
Junior girls and senior women’s coach Terry Tynan said male players got the best and longest ground allocations.
“Men’s leagues get first preference,” Tynan said.
This inequity was made worse by the lack of female change rooms.
“Whether it’s raining or not, we’re sitting out on the pitch at half time,” he said.
“Sport misses out.”
Team manager Jane Evans-Saisanas, whose daughter Isabella plays with the under-14s, said it was important to remember “girls deal with other issues than boys do”.
“We had a young girl trying to deal with (menstruation) today, and instead of being able to walk off to the change rooms, everyone knew about it,” Ms Evans-Saisanas said.
She said the preference to men’s leagues in the fixturing was a big turn-off for players and parents.
“Do we really want to do this late every Sunday?” she asked.
But Ms Evans-Saisanas said the poor quality of the grounds was the “biggest concern”, adding to the list of turn-offs for girls.
But what’s the solution?
Women’s Premier League manager Paul Stewart believes there needs to be a co-ordinated push for more funding, starting with grassroots clubs and local government and going all the way to the state and federal level.
Brighton Beach girls just want to have fun in footy
THE under-15 girls from Brighton Beach Junior Football Club’s 2nd Division have a winning percentage of 765 per cent.
The Brighton Beach girls had so much fun playing Australian rules football in PE that they started their own footy team.
“I got a footy for my birthday,” player Sophie Stewart said. “It’s, like, my life — it’s all I talk about now!”
But the girls have to contend with some of the worst sporting facilities in Bayside.
The tiny 4mx4m female toilets at William St Reserve consist of an old cistern, a single shower, and a urinal. Emmie said it was “embarrassing” when Brighton Beach hosted other clubs for home games, and those players grilled her about the state of the clubrooms. “I don’t know what to say — it’s not really like I can defend it,” Emmie said.
Emmie’s mum is South Metro Junior Football League director and Bayside Mayor Felicity Frederico. Since entering office, Cr Frederico said she had made women’s sport her top priority, after decades of neglect at the hands of previous councils.
Bayside Council has a strategy in place to upgrade 27 sporting pavilions within the next 15 years, but Cr Frederico says the plans will be severely impacted by the State Government‘s planned rate capping scheme.
“We’re asking them to be role models,” she said of the Brighton Beach girls.
“But we’re asking them to accept second best.”
Follow the Brighton Beach under-15’s on Instagram at @brightonbeaches.
“We have a duty to keep our kids involved in sport.” — SDNA president Alison Horton.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Have you got suggestions to improve the state of play for women’s sport in Bayside? Do you know an inspirational local sportswoman or team whose story should be told?
Tell us in the comment section below or email letters to the editor: bayside@leadernewspapers.com.au
Alternatively, share your opinion on the Bayside Leader Facebook page or join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #GrassCeiling2015.
Pictures: Victorian preppies start their first day of school
About 70,000 Victorian grade prep students have started their first year of school this week. Check back to see all the photos from primary schools across the state.
Every in and out across the entire VAFA ahead of 2025
Keep up to date with every in and out across all six divisions of the Victorian Amateur Football Association. See every move here.