Our final Female Football Week Feature sees us talk all things football with one of Cooks River Titans’ newest recruits, Rosie Koutoulas.
Rosie’s approach to football is simple yet effective. She is there to unite women, socialise and have a good time.
Only recently has she been able to reignite her passion for football with work and family commitments keeping her out of the game until around 12 years ago when she started playing for Leichhardt Saints.
Her reintroduction to football arrived in quite extraordinary circumstances with those close to her suggesting that she use it as a getaway as she dealt with her partner’s health scare.
“My partner got Leukemia and it was a three year process. It was Liza [Schaeper] who said to come play soccer and I thought that may be good because I needed an outlet, I didn’t know what to do,” Rosie said.
“I’m running a household; I’ve got my own daughter and now my partner is diagnosed with leukemia and had moved into hospital - it was pretty intense.
Through that process, people thought she needed something and that’s how I got back into football.”
After a number of years with Saints she made the switch to Leichhardt Tigers before eventually landing at the Titans this year.
A meeting with Cooks River founder and CDSFA director, Nick Kambounias, was the main driver behind her decision to make the move to Gough Whitlam.
“The driving force was me meeting Nick [Kambounias] and wanting to help him start the first women’s team at Cooks River,” Rosie said.
“We’re a special kind of breed and Nick is very proud of that. We want to try and encourage other women and develop football across the district.”
She has been amazed by the sheer organisation and dedication to football at her new club – singing praise for the committee and the numerous volunteers.
“Where have I have ever gone in the last five years where the committee set up fields and takes them down. Go to Beaman and Gough and you see the actual committee members there all day. I look at them and say ‘go, come back later.’
“They’re there from 9am in the morning to 4 in the afternoon.” She adds: “Schmick operation, I’ve got a lot of good things to say about them.”
Rosie and her team are keen to give back to the club and are in the process of organising an event.
“Our women’s team will organise a night where we can bring the adult teams together on a Friday or Saturday night and try to raise money for the club through a silent auction or something similar.”
The Uniter: Bringing Women Together
Rosie has played in the same competition for a number of years now which means that she recognises almost everyone that she comes up against and treats every match like a social event.
Seeing the same faces week in, week out has meant that she has got to know these women quite well and actually led to her asking some of these women from the opposition to join her as she made a summer six-a-side team a couple of years ago.
“I formed a team and I called it United. We’ve developed friendships, I’ve got long term friendships from people that I just handpicked on the shoulder.”
“I think that’s the value that I try to create in my environment. You’ve got a gap of your WIL’s where do they go? How are you going to keep those girls engaged in the game?
It’s not just about playing soccer. It’s about women being free from their day to day duties whether it be home or professional duties. It’s a different little world that we create, soccer is second to us even though we’re doing really well.
It’s that community that I love, I think that I’m a bit of a uniter.”
Coaching the next generation
Around halfway through our interview, Rosie tells us that she is actually coaching a U/12 girls side at Saints.
She is concerned for her girls because she can already see that they are slowly becoming disinterested and disengaged with the sport.
“I recognise that whatever has happened in the past with that team, they haven’t learnt a lot of skills.”
“I’ve come on board to connect these kids otherwise you’ll lose them. I can see that they are getting smashed.”
She’s brought in some firepower to help her team with friend and Strathfield GMT star, Angelica Georgopoulos coming down to King George Park to offer her assistance.
As a promising footballer and Football NSW game development officer, Angelica has been able to pass on some valuable skills and knowledge to the group of young girls.
Angelica’s efforts clearly paid off with the deficit slowly being reduced. Rosie informed us that her side lost 3-1 shortly after they had a session with Angelica.
“We scored a goal; I don’t know whether they had scored a goal in the past five years.”
“I jumped like I just won a grand final, I was on a high.”
By CDSFA Communications Officer – Samuel Greco Schwartz
