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 Emily Rogers, a jack-of-all-trades who loves football and is involved in many aspects: playing, coaching, and refereeing through the Game Leader program.
At 14-years-old, Emily is the third-youngest coach in the Canterbury Association – missing out on the title of youngest by only three months.
Impressively, the five youngest coaches in the CDSFA are all female: highlighting the progress that has been made by older generations of women to make the current pathways assessable to the new generation coming through.
Emily grew-up in a football family where her sisters played and her parents encouraged her to take up the sport. Originally playing U6s in Tasmania, Emily and her family soon moved to Sydney where she continued to play: currently lining-up for Leichhardt Saints.
While she has played for her entire footballing life, the other aspects of her participation have been relatively recent: joining the Game Leader program last year and beginning her coaching journey this season as she took charge of her younger sister’s team.
Her parents encouraged her to get into refereeing and so that’s why Emily signed-up to the Game Leader program at her local club, Leichhardt Saints. It was a position she flourished in.
“Game Leading is really fun and also a good way to earn a bit of money: it is a job that I enjoy,” explained Emily.
“I love to see all the kids – especially little girls – get into football and it is great to be able to teach them about football while I facilitate their games.”
The enjoyment that Emily felt from Game Leading led her to seeking out new opportunities independently, which is how she discovered the female-only coaching course earlier this year.
“I found out about the female-only coaching course while browsing the CDSFA website.
“The course was earlier this year but the development has continued through the season: after the course we have been getting further opportunities to do coaching development and we’ve even learnt first aid.
“The program has been free-of-charge so it's a great opportunity and I'm really glad I got into it.”
In this series of interviews for Female Football Week, a common trend has been women having to fight to be involved, having to fight for equity, and having to fight for genuine female pathways in sport.
It’s a positive sign that those barriers are being removed for younger generations coming through, highlighted by Emily’s experience.
Emily has highlighted two specific role models who have served as inspiration: Frieda Maher who is the Treasurer at Leichhardt Saints and who organises their Game Leader program, and Trudy Burke (Female Participation Coordinator at CDSFA) who organised the coaching course.
Ever since she started playing football, Emily says she has always had women like Frieda and Trudy in influential positions to serve as inspiration.
“Women have been in these positions since I started participating in football,” explained Emily.
“It's important to have women in these positions to inspire others because football is a sport for everyone and everyone should have a chance to be fully involved.
“For me, football has always been a supportive community. There's so opportunities in the sport – especially for women and girls because there’s lots of initiatives arising not only with playing but refereeing and coaching too.”
