The First Friday in February
AN AFLW AUDIO DOCUMENTARY
The first AFLW game was played on Friday February 3rd, 2017 at Princes Park between Carlton and Collingwood; 24,500 people filled every inch of the stadium. Thousands more were locked out. The stands were filled with footy die-hards and interested observers, people who had long known of women’s football and others who were only just learning.
The First Friday in February is an audio documentary that will take you back to that night, reliving that first game and all that it meant through the memories of women who were there.
On Friday February 3rd, 2017, Aussie Rules Football changed forever.
There were twenty-four and half thousand people packed into the stands at Princes Park in Melbourne that night.
And when the siren sounded, and the ball was thrown into the air for the first time, they erupted, their roar an expression of their passion, of their joy, of long-held dreams realised.
Women have been playing football for more than 100 years. The first recorded game was played in Perth in 1915. More games followed, albeit sporadically, until state based leagues began launching from the early 1980s. The first, the Victorian Women’s Football League in 1981.
In 2010, the league commissioned a report into women’s football, a series of exhibition matches starting in 2013 grew from that report.
It was the success of those exhibition matches that encouraged the AFL to bring forward their plans for a national women’s football league and so the AFLW was born.
There are thousands of stories from that inaugural season. Feats of strength and skill and endurance, both on field and off. Tales of resilience and determination, of dreams dashed and rebuilt. But their genesis was that warm Friday night in February when thirty-two women clad in the navy blue of Carlton and the black and white stripes of Collingwood took to the field.
The First Friday in February will take you back to that night, reliving that first AFLW game and all that it meant through the memories of women who were there.
They each have a story, their story, of that First Friday in February.
This project was encouraged and supported by some wonderful people, a big thank you to Fiona Blair, Brunette Lenkic, Helen Walpole, Fi Murphy, Neve Mahoney and the many many others, too numerous to name, who assisted in big ways and little ways to help bring these stories to life.
None of this would have been possible, however, without the truly excellent women who were so generous with their time and with their stories. To Jan Cooper, Yvette Andrews, Shannon Power, Jo Blaik, Aisling Grey, Olivia Grey, Sue Alberti AC, Ella McGregor, Fiona Blair, Titian Brady, Bronwen Scott, Marissa Lordanic, Brooke Pereira, Katie Wykes, Adrienne O'neil, Paula Hunt, Janet Graham, Danae Gibson, Alyce Johnson, Lucy Watkin, Rebecca Lobo and Brenna Krajcer, Phoebe Venables, Claire Jenkin, Sarah Black, Sally Tanner, Angela Pippos, Polly Fletcher, Yvette Wroby, Kylie Maslen, Kate O'Halloran, Emma Race, Dr Kate Seear, Ashleigh Cochrane, Helen Walpole, Fiona Newton, Bec Dahl, Susannah Mott and Krista Woodroffe, thank you.
Credits:
All pictures supplied by Robert Keeley
Celebration - http://www.purple-planet.com
A New Beginning - Bensound.com
Deep Blue - Bensound.com
The First Friday in February is supported by a grant from RMIT University.