In celebration of Female Football Week, we are celebrating some of the women who are doing amazing work in our community.
Today we’re looking at Alexandra Georgopoulos, a member of the committee at Strathfield FC who has been at the club for over 18 years.
From coaching to playing, to organising football festivals or recruiting teams full of new players, you can be sure to see Alex down at Strathfield Park on any given weekend making sure that the club is growing – even if that does mean missing the occasional Greek Easter lunch with her family.
While her family occasionally laments the family outings Alex misses due to football, she owes her passion in life to her parents who signed her up to play the moment that Greece won the Euros in 2004.
It was a transformative moment in Alex’s life as the quiet, shy six-year-old used football as the building block to become the confident, outspoken change-maker that she is today.
“When I was younger I was bullied simply because I was a quiet kid and easy to push-over,” explained Alex.
“Loving football though, I signed up to become a referee and that gave me a voice. It made me realise that I had a voice and I could stand up for myself.
“The change was immediate: I remember at school on Friday I was quiet as usual then I came in on Monday after that weekend was my history teacher says: ‘What the hell happened to you? You haven’t shut up all day!’”
It was that new-found confidence that led to Alex committing to being the change she wanted to see in the world. And the biggest change at that time of her life was to see more female representation at club level, and for someone to fight for basic equity for women and girls when it came to decision making at the club.
So it was at the age of 16 that Alex joined the committee at Strathfield FC. Keen for some young blood in the club ranks, Strathfield welcomed her with open arms to the committee, not realising just how much this young women was about to shake things up.
“I love my club but at the time we were not very progressive. Females may have been a minority at the club but it shouldn’t have meant we didn’t exist in the eyes of the committee.”
From that moment Alex fought to ensure that female footballers were no longer an afterthought but were given equal importance when choices had to be made.
Image credit: MMS (Multimedia Solutions) Sports Photography
This motivation has led to Strathfield FC now pushing hard for female-led initiatives and decisions being made with women and girls at the forefront of the committee’s mind. These include major events like the annual Female Football Festival at Strathfield, and basic but important changes like female-specific uniforms.
“Me and my sister both got really angry that women were being overlooked so we thought about how we change it, and that’s where our fight came from, and from that fight things like the Female Football Festival snowballed, and then we would fight for uniforms, and then we would fight for women and girls at every committee meeting for other necessary changes.”
“The club’s mentality has shifted heaps, especially in the past year. We've got a new president, he's a lot more progressive, and the club is lot more pro-female. It's just took changing an outdated mentality.”
What makes these changes even more important is that they are not cosmetic modifications, but they have made a genuine difference in the recruitment and retention of females at Strathfield FC.
“When I started playing, women were only represented doing the traditional female roles such as canteen ladies and paperwork.
“I wanted that to change. I didn’t like being told that I couldn’t do a specific role or play a specific part so I took that personally and aspired to be the female role model that I didn't have in football.
“Now our changes are showing, and women are showing we are here: we’re playing, we’re coaching, we’re refereeing. Hell, we’re still there as canteen ladies – but we’re here everywhere now, and we’re being seen.”
As the role of women at Strathfield FC has grown, so has Alex’s individual role. She has moved into the Female Football Officer position on the committee as well as holding the office of Seniors Registrar and sharing the role of Social Media Officer with her sister, Angelica.
It’s not just on the administration side that Alex rules the roost either, she plays in the club’s Grace Martin Trophy team and coaches three teams: the AAW3, AAW6, and Over-35s teams!
No wonder she spends more time at Strathfield Park than her own home, and with the Women’s World Cup on home soil in 2023 – these improvements are just the start for Alex.
“Football is called the global game, but if women don’t make up even half of the football population, is it truly global? No. But now with the biggest women’s tournament landing on our shores next year, it really puts into perspective how important this game is not just for women but for society.
“It’s really important to see women in the community changing the game and paving the way for the younger generations to give them something to look up to.”
