West Coburg Junior Football team has cut the word boys from its club song to be more inclusive

A junior football team has given the word ‘boys’ the boot, dropping it from their club song to better include female club members.

A under-14s footy team has booted the word “boys” from its club song to make it more inclusive for women and girls at West Coburg FC – despite having no girls in its playing line-up.

The boys made the change after their assistant coach pointed out the original lyrics didn’t take female coaches and trainers – and potential players – into account.

West Coburg football club president David Gloury said the change, which the committee only found out about this week, “caught us by surprise” but was “worthwhile”.

“Changing one word might seem insignificant, but it helps us live up to the truly inclusive club I think we’ve always been,” he said.

The team’s coach said the change was common sense.

West Coburg U/14s junior footy team. Picture: Tim Carrafa

“Our team is solely compromised of boys at this time but it’s a mixed team competition and girls are welcome to join,” he said.

“We have a female assistant coach and female trainers and they’re part of the team when we win.”

He said he wasn’t trying to take the moral high ground — the team just wanted a song that actually included all club members.

“It’s easy for people to say ‘This is just political correctness gone mad’, but I’ve got a daughter and my daughter never played footy because I never played footy with her growing up,” he said. “I was blind to the fact that maybe she would have liked to.”

Mr Gloury said the AFL and government should ­divert more funding for ­female change rooms, which were “sadly lacking”. “We can’t play girls’ football at our home ground,” he said.

Williamstown Seagulls CEO Jason Reddick said the club had also rewritten its song to “better reflect its core inclusive value”, replacing “boys” with “team” and “everyone”.

“We couldn’t have a song that didn’t represent the women’s team,” Mr Reddick said. “We ran it past the men’s leadership group and consensus was easy.”

Sydney fans now sing ‘loyal swans’ instead of ‘loyal sons’. Picture: AAP/Travis Anderson

“As a proud club with teams in both the VFL and VFLW competitions, the small but important changes give our whole club – players, staff, members and supporters – a gender-neutral song to sing,” it said in a statement.

The Sydney Swans made headlines earlier this year, replacing two words from their song to ensure it represented men’s and women’s teams.

Players now sing “our loyal Swans” instead of “our loyal sons” after a win, which a club spokesman said was a “small but important” change.

Other AFL teams with gendered language in their song, such as Essendon, North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, now have different versions for their women’s teams.