How the Great War in Europe helped lay the foundations of today's AFLW competition

Updated August 06, 2018 09:54:53

It was a historic game of footy that was played just as the Great War was coming to an end.

Victoria's first women's Australian Rules match was played almost 100 years ago, when the Ballarat-based Lucas Girls faced off against the Khaki Girls from South Melbourne, in a match that helped lay the foundations of today's AFLW competition.

The game attracted around 6,000 spectators and raised 330 pounds — about $29,000 in today's money — for the construction of Ballarat's Arch of Victory, a monument to commemorate those who served in the war.

"It was partly because of the very patriotic environment that women's football was born into and in fact gave it its opportunity and legitimacy during the war years," Victoria University's sports historian Dr Rob Hess said.

"The men were away fighting and the women want to do their bit and have the opportunity given to them by their employers to raise money for the ANZACs."

Victoria's first women's footy players 'really meant business'

The group of women dubbed the 'Lucas Girls' — workers from Ballarat's long-standing Lucas Clothing business — were known for their fundraising efforts to support and honour the ANZAC troops.

The charity football match between the Lucas Girls and the Khaki Girls took place on Saturday September 28, 1918, with the Lucas Girls wearing mid-length pleated skirts, long-sleeved white jumpers and white knitted tasselled caps and the Khaki Girls donning khaki-coloured tunics, white shirts and white bandanas.

The Ballarat Courier reported that after the umpire sounded the whistle, "both teams threw themselves into the game as if they really meant business".

After a "very rough" final quarter, the local Lucas Girls emerged the winners, with a score of 3.6 (24) to their opponents' 1.2 (8).

'Patriotic fundraisers'

Dr Rob Hess, who has co-authored a book about the history of women's involvement in Australian Rules Football, said there had been interest for decades before organised games began.

Quite a few of the women's matches that did develop in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, were what Dr Hess referred to as "patriotic fundraisers".

"Women had to step out and fill the breach in terms of the economy, in terms of society, in terms of community, in terms of holding things together while the men went away to fight," he said.

"Let's not forget the fact that 60,000 Australian men died in World War I, so that's a significant social shift to have that occurring in that period."

Dr Hess said the war pushed women into male-dominated areas both in the workforce and sports.

"It obviously had a devastating effect on the economy, on society, and women were, if you like, championed a bit to do their bit with a whatever it takes attitude to support their men at war."

"There weren't all that many opportunities for them to do that and to raise funds for the ANZACs and putting on a football match was something unique and novel that attracted a crowd."

Celebrating 100 years on

To celebrate the centenary of the 1918 game, around 180 women put their skills to the test at Ballarat City Oval on Sunday, as part of an inaugural competition between two local women's teams.

Redan Lions player Kirby Fenwick organised the Centenary of Women's Football competition in Ballarat, which saw games played between her club and the Ballarat Swans, as a tribute to the 1918 game.

"Whether that's the game that was played in 1918, or whether it's the games played in 40s and 50s, or whether it's the beginning of the state competitions around the country, it's really important to remember that women's footy didn't start two years ago with the AFLW," Ms Fenwick said.

"It's really important to me, and I think more broadly to people that are involved in women's football, to tell these stories and to cement these narratives."

While Ms Fenwick said the cumbersome knee-length skirts and tunics the 1918 teams played in were "amusing" by modern standards, they also represented the players' dedication to the sport.

"It also says to me that they were committed, they really wanted to play, they were gonna go out there and play footy."

"It didn't matter what they wanted to wear, they wanted to get out there and they wanted to have a crack like me and my teammates do every weekend."

Ms Fenwick said the recent success of the AFLW had sparked a growth of women's participation in local competitions.

"My brothers played and my dad played so I spent a lot of time at my local footy club when I was a kid and footy's always been the biggest sport in my life," she said.

"But it wasn't until I saw women playing in AFLW that it actually sort of dawned on me: 'hey this could be something I could do'."

Redan Lions had a comprehensive 93 point to 0 win over the Swans.

The follow-up match that never went ahead

Dr Hess said a follow-up of the 1918 match to be played in Melbourne was planned for November that year, but never eventuated.

"It would have been the first time that a women's football match of this nature had been played in Melbourne," he said.

"The VFL were prepared to support it but for some reason, some unknown reason, the match didn't go ahead.

"The men come back from war [and] it's almost like it's back to normal," he said.

The war ended just a few months after the match was played in Ballarat, but Dr Hess said other issues could have contributed to the follow-up game's cancellation.

"The Spanish Flu hit, and 12,000 people in Australia [were] killed by the Spanish Flu, so clearly people are not wanting to go out to be amongst crowds … so that put a bit of a kibosh on the participation of women in public events like women's football in the immediate aftermath of World War I."

"Perhaps it was a logistical problem, who knows what the reason was … but the opportunity was lost and never taken up again."

"I don't think the Lucas Girls ever played a football match together again."

Topics: sport, gender-roles, world-war-1, history, family, ballarat-3350, south-melbourne-3205

First posted August 06, 2018 09:53:46