In 1979 at Seymour Park in Sydney, 17-year-old Sandra Brentnall kicked Australia’s first international goal in women’s soccer.
It was the first test match against New Zealand, with thousands in attendance, and Brentnall was wearing boots that were two sizes too big, stuffed with newspaper.
“They were cheap plastic boots from Target,” Brentnall said.
“We didn’t have a lot of money; we were just grateful to have boots.”
Brentnall doesn’t remember the exact details of the historic goal, but she does remember the excitement of her team.
“I fell on the floor because they were all hugging me. I was only small,” Brentnall said.
“Our big defender just picked me up by the back of my shirt and put me on my feet.”
Brentnall was playing for the team that would go on to become Australia’s beloved Matildas – known back then simply as “the Australian side”.
Kicked out for ‘being a girl’
Born in the UK, Brentnall was the captain of her childhood soccer team in Nottingham, until, at eight years old, she was kicked out for “being a girl”.
“In England, there was no women’s soccer at all, so I played with the boys on a Saturday,” she said.
Brentnall said she was devastated to be removed from the team.
“You’re playing the game that you love and live and breathe for, and then next week, you’ve got nothing.”
Brentnall’s father, once a semi-professional player himself, was determined his daughter’s talent would be recognised and moved the family to Australia in 1974.
“It must have been huge for mum and dad to do that, to uproot and take three kids across the other side of the world,” Brentnall said.
“And it was heartbreaking in a sense, because my dad went to numerous clubs and when they saw me, they still said ‘No, you’re too small’.”
It would take until Brentnall had turned 14 and grown a few inches, but eventually, she was picked up by the Inglewood United Soccer Club women’s team.
From street games to international football
From there, Brentnall said it “all opened up”.
“There was no grading, no juniors, just one level – ladies – and I never looked back,” she said.
“I believed in myself, believed in the team, and before you know it, I was playing at a higher level, and then the ultimate level, which was the Australian side.”
Brentnall had been hand-picked and coached by Peter Dimopoulos, who is remembered as one of the driving forces behind the Western Australia’s Women’s Soccer Association.
Female soccer players in the spotlight
With the Women’s World Cup kicking off on home soil next week, Brentnall’s story is one of many featured in a new oral history collection at the State Library of Western Australia.
State Library manager of heritage and engagement David Craddock said the collection celebrated the pioneers of women’s soccer.
“For whatever reason, culturally, this story hasn’t been collected, or told,” Mr Craddock said.
“For the past few months, we’ve been digesting and researching eight women and their stories of resilience.”
Another of those women is Marilyn Learmont, who was the first female referee from WA to run the line in the men’s National Soccer League.
Learmont, who hadn’t played a game of soccer herself, was motivated to learn to referee when her husband was studying to become one.
“I was helping him study, and I said it was easy, so he said to me, ‘If it’s easy, you go and do it’,” Learmont said.
“I got the book out and I went the next time the exams were there, and I passed the first time.”
Learmont said she thought the extra knowledge about the game “would be nice” because her boys played, but she didn’t think she’d actually referee.
“I did it as a joke, really, but it became a 20-year career.”
Learmont went on to become the first woman in the world to referee a B-class international game.
“It was Australia [vs] Brazil, under-19s. No other female had done that, at that stage,” she said.
From sideline abuse, to requests for ‘the lady referee’
Learmont copped it from the sidelines for being a woman.
“I was told to go home and do my dishes, go and do my knitting. That I belonged behind the sink,” she said.
Learmont said things improved once people realised she was good at the job.
“And then I’d get asked to do the games and when I did Country Week, they’d all come out from Kalgoorlie and Albany [and say] ‘Oh, can we have the lady referee?'”
Learmont used to bring her boys to the games she refereed.
“I put a blanket next to the fence where I was refereeing with a little case with food and they’d just sit there, good as gold,” Learmont said.
“A woman has to prove themselves that they can do it.
“And once you walked out there with that whistle, you knew you had to control 22 men, so you got it done.”
Game Changes: Trailblazing stories from WA women in soccer is on at the WA State Library from July 14 – August 28.
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