Women's Australian rules football (in areas where it is popular, known simply as women's football, women's footy or women's AFL) is the female-only form of Australian rules football, generally with some modification to the laws of the game. It is played by more than half a million women worldwide and with 119,447 Australian adult and 66,998 youth female participants in 2023 is the second most played code among women and girls in Australia behind soccer.
The first Australian rules football matches involving women were organised late in the 19th century, but for several decades it occurred mostly in the form of scratch matches, charity matches and one-off exhibition games. The first all-female matches began early in the 20th century, and regular competition first emerged after World War II. State-based leagues emerged between the 1980s and 2000s: the first was the Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) formed in Melbourne in 1981, with others including the West Australian Women's Football League (WAWFL) formed in Perth in 1988 and the South Australian Women's Football League (SAWFL) formed in Adelaide in 1991. The AFL Women's National Championships were inaugurated in 1992.
In 2010 the Australian Football League (AFL) assumed control of the sport with the intention of professionalising it and began restructuring competitions around the country to support an Australian national league, AFL Women's (AFLW), that commenced its inaugural season in 2017. By 2022 all 18 AFL clubs had begun fielding women's teams. The AFLW attracts a large audience of more than one million attendeesAFLW passes the million mark as crowds keep growing and over two million viewers,Over 2.6 million Australians watch AFLW on TV from Roy Morgan 29 March 2021 Finding No. 8674 and has managed to maintain its high levels of interest despite moving to primarily ticketed and subscription broadcasting models in 2021. The AFLW competition is one of the most popular women's football competitions in the world with an average attendance in 2019 of 6,262 a game. The record attendance is 53,034 which was set at the 2019 AFL Women's Grand Final which, prior to the 2020 ICC Women's T20 World Cup, held the record for the most attended fixture in Australian women's sport.
Women's Australian rules has also grown rapidly outside of Australia since the 2000s. The Women's International Cup has been run since 2011. Players to represent their country and be recruited at AFLW level include Laura Duryea, Clara Fitzpatrick (Ireland) and Kendra Heil (Canada).
History The game's governing body, the AFL Commission, has been criticised for its lack of acknowledgement of the history of women's football, taking credit only for the virtually overnight "revolution" of the AFLW while making only passing reference to its origins and development.Growth of women's football has been a 100-year revolution – it didn't happen overnight from The Conversation
While the Australian Football League has, in fact, played some role in the development of women's football in Australia, especially from the 2010s, it operated for 120 years without any official female teams, and was one of the last sporting competitions in the country to affiliate with a women's league. Overall public support for women's football in the league's home of Melbourne has also lagged behind the rest of the country to an extent.
Codified in 1859, Australian football had been played by men for almost half a century before the first all-women's football matches were played: exceptions to this included charity matches, such as patriotic fundraisers, which occasionally featured women players. Despite this, women have nonetheless followed the Australian game passionately since the mid-19th century, accounting for approximately 50% of spectators at matches, a uniquely high figure among football codes. As early as 1862 women publicly questioned why they would not be able to play.
Women's soccer became popular in the 1920s, and while documented mentions of football matches are often difficult to differentiate as to whether they were played under Australian rules, there is significant evidence of a continuity in competition from the end of World War I spanning several Australian states.
Both world wars were a great liberator for women; as the men fought in the war, women were often called to perform many tasks typically done by men, including spectator sports.
Earliest women's teams and matches
In August 1880, a group gathered at Sandhurst (Bendigo) in Victoria responding to a postcard from signed "Lover of Football" to form an all-ladies football club. The idea was considered a novelty at the time, and did not proceed, though generated some attention across regional Victoria.Bendigo Advertiser 2 August 1880 Page 2 In 1886, a local paper reported that a group of women in Williamstown were seen playing kick-to-kick. In the same year a call for a ladies football club affiliated with the North Williamstown Football Club suggesting a hybrid match against a women's lacrosse club was made in the Williamstown Chronicle.Williamstown Chronicle 17 July 1886 Page 2 The Chronicle.
Costume football matches were popular from the late 1870s as a form of outdoor fancy dress theatre amusement mixing opera, comedy and pantomime. While early events were poorly documented, accounts from the time were over the top and gaudy affairs. However such matches provided a gateway for female participation and over time these there were more and more documented accounts of the inclusion of female characters. In 1887 one of the earliest accounts of numerous "young ladies" participating was held in Ballarat, at the Eastern Oval in front of a huge crowd of 6,000.
In 1892, a Bendigo woman was charged with nuisance for kicking a football in the street.
In 1894, a high profile costume match was played to raise funds for the Australian Dramatic and Musical Association which featured one of the earliest all-female teams which included Nellie Stewart, Florence Maude Young, Jennie Lee, Violet Varley and Flora Graupner. Played at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground the match attracted one of the largest crowds ever seen to the ground and was declared a draw and the media lauded the performance of the female team: "the ladies, in fact, carried all before them". A repeat female vs male match was played at the Theatrical Carnival at the Royal Exhibition Building in 1895.
World War I: Shopgirl competitions and first all-women's matches Women's role on the Home front during World War I saw the organisation of the earliest recorded all-women's matches.
Records exist of a football side in Perth, Western Australia made up of department store staff playing as Foy & Gibson's as early as 1915. Some of the first organised matches were played on Perth Oval, including one on 14 October 1917.The Daily News 8 October 1917 Page 3 FOY AND GIBSON'S POPULAR GIRL
In Victoria the Federal Khaki Clothing Factory "Khaki girls" team (playing in khaki and white) travelled to Ballarat to play the Ballarat Eleanor Lucas's lingerie factory "Lucas girls" team (playing in pink and white and coached by Charlie Clymo) at City Oval in Ballarat, Victoria in August which was, according to reports, a highly physical contest in front of a "huge crowd" and the even was met with substantial fanfare.Leader 26 October 1918 Page 47 EQUAL PRIZE.—A GRADE A GIRLS FOOTBALL MATCH. The match funded the Ballarat Arch of Victory.The Ballarat Star 28 Sep 1918 Page 2 KHAKI GIRLS. The Lucas girls won the match 3 goals 6 (24) to the Khakis 1 goal 2 (8) in front of 7,000 people, then the largest football crowd in Ballarat history.The Ballarat Star 30 Sep 1918 Page 6 KHAKI GIRLS IN BALLARAT. A photograph of the Lucas Girls Football team appears in the Ballarat Star in December 1918.The Ballarat Star 11 December 1918 Page 44 LUCAS GIRLS' FOOTBALL TEAM.
In September 1918 the Australian Red Cross organised a number of fundraising "ladies football" matches including a match at Broken Hill, New South Wales between teams of the 27th Battalion and Artillery as well as several in South Australia including Morphett Vale took on Coo-ee, as well as matches involving the factory of Charles Moore and Co. Perhaps the highest profile match was between North Adelaide iand South Adelaide at the Jubilee Oval in Adelaide on the 21st.
In South Australia, an early example of Women's football was a Port Adelaide Women's team in November, 1918 where a game took place at Alberton Oval between Port Adelaide and another club representing Thebarton. Port Adelaide was captained by Eileen Rend.
Interwar era: Female football challenges stereotypes Perth's successful "Shopgirls Premiership" competition continued after the war and through the 1920s and included teams from Brennan's drapery and Foy & Gibson among others.Mirror 5 December 1925 Page 4 BRENNAN'S WIN A DOUBLE.
Women's teams were formed at Riverton, South Australia, to play scratch matches in 1920.Daily Herald (Mon 21 June 1920 Page 7 RIVERTON GIRLS AT FOOTBALL.
The first match to be played in Melbourne was in 1921. According to the AFL Record, following World War I, a match in Melbourne was held to show that women could play what had previously been seen to be a man's sport. The first women's match attracted a large crowd and interest. The umpire wore a skirt.AFL Record. Round 19 (Women's Round), 2007. Pg 8"Oriel", in The Argus, of Saturday, 12 April 1913, noting that, "At the meeting of the Victorian Football Association last week an application for registration as an umpire was received from a young lady", presented the following satirical verse:I saw her at a football match, She held the game in check;The whistle blew,She cried, "Here, you, Free kick for round the neck!"I met her at a dance that night, And held her close embraced;Her eyes so blue,Shone out, "Here, you, Free kiss for round the waist". In 1921, a women's team in St Kilda organised a game with the women wearing kits donated by the St Kilda men's club and shorts rather than dresses. A team regularly practiced on Saturday mornings at the St Kilda Cricket Ground.
Other high drawing matches were played in Western Australia between Kalgoorlie and Kalgoorlie Railways.
In 1922, a Fitzroy female team travelled to Perth and played West Perth in front of 13,500 spectators.The Sydney Morning Herald 14 August 1922 Page 10 VICTORIAN TEAM IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
The 1923 Richmond ladies football team played against the men's side in Melbourne to raise funds for a junior trip.Richmond Guardian, 18 August 1923
In 1929, as part of an annual charity day, a 30-minute match was played on Adelaide Oval between workers of the Charles Moore & Co. factory and the Mirror Shirt and Pyjama Factory. Although the match was not a standalone event, newspapers at the time did refer to it as the main attraction of the day. A moth biplane dropped the game ball to start the match. In 1930, the club captain and secretary Veronica O'Callahan announced that the Charles Moore's club was going into recess, claiming that the game is "too rough" to become popular with girls in Adelaide."The Sports Girl" The Mail 15 March 1930 Page 16 Nevertheless, Port Adelaide Magpies reformed a women's team for the following year to play against a team from Queenstown.Advertiser and Register 24 April 1931 Page 17 GIRLS' FOOTBALL TEAMThe Herald 25 April 1931 Page 7 GIRLS ORGANISE FOOTBALL TEAM In August 1930, a charity match was organised in Perth on what is now the WACA Ground.Sunday Times 24 August 1930 Page 6
In 1931, women protested against all-female matches being organised for Melbourne.The Northern Miner 22 Sep 1931 Page 4 PROTEST BY WOMEN. That year, Oakleigh and Carnegie Football girls' clubs staged a match in front of a large crowd at Caulfield Racecourse in Melbourne.Weekly Times 3 October 1931 Page 30 Girls' Football Match was Feature of Oakleight Carnival in Aid of Local Football Club