The New Zealand football community was rocked earlier this year by complaints from a top women’s team on how they felt they received second-class treatment compared to their club’s top men’s team. But Neil Reid reports how a pathfinding Hawke’s Bay club proudly puts its talented women players first.
Shelley Cameron almost cringes when she remembers being given a club goalkeeping strip to wear which had been worn by legendary All Whites shot-stopper Mark Paston the previous season.
It was more than 25 years ago and Cameron was goalkeeper for the Napier City Rovers’ Women’s Central League team.
“It was of course massive [in size],” Cameron told the Herald on Sunday.
“That was when Mark Paston was playing in goal for Rovers and they gave me his shirt. He is like six foot six, and I am like five foot four.”
The rest of the squad was also given the previous season’s top men’s team kit to wear.
Fast-forward more than 20 years, and as well as being on the board of the Taradale Association Football Club, Cameron is also a life member and coach of its women’s reserves team.
It is a football club that has undergone a cultural gender revolution when it comes to its on-field priorities; implementing a plan to prioritise its female programme in a bid to become Hawke’s Bay’s prominent club for women players.
Six years on from setting that goal, Taradale AFC’s top team has jumped up a division to play in the 2023 Women’s Central League; which includes six clubs from Wellington and a side from Manawatū.
And unlike Cameron and her teammates two decades ago, they wear a kit specially designed for women players.
“We buy it to suit the girls who are in the team, so nobody is wearing outdated, horrible stuff,” Cameron said. “It is just so much more comfortable when you are playing.
“It just shows what the attitude was like 25 years ago as opposed to now where our girls look fabulous in their strip because they have women’s-fit strip.
“And we used to have a white change strip [for clashes or away games], which none of the girls really liked playing in because as soon as it rained it went a bit see-through. So, we ordered a whole new [coloured] change strip this year.”
It may seem like a little thing from the outside, but combined with many other initiatives instituted by Taradale AFC it provides a stark contrast to grievances aired by members of Western Springs’ premier women’s team.
Members of the side – who finished second in last year’s Women’s National League – went public about a long-standing dispute with club management about perceived inequities between the treatment of Western Springs’ men’s and women’s teams.
Grievances included player anger about available coaching and conditioning, a training facility and financial resources for the women’s team.
Others spoke about concerns from some of Western Springs’ top female players that they felt “completely disrespected” by the alleged “highly misogynistic behaviour” of its board.
The relationship breakdown became public as football officials in New Zealand worked feverishly to prepare for the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup, which kicks off on July 20 and is being co-hosted with Australia.
The spat was resolved after mediation, with the women’s team signing a contract with the club guaranteeing their equity – both financially and opportunity-wise – with their male counterparts, and a change to the club’s constitution.
Cameron – whose club proudly has a long-standing 50/50 male-female split on its committee – said she hoped the saga could have a positive legacy across the New Zealand football community when it came to gender equity.
Taradale’s Aleesha Heywood-coached top side is the first women’s team from Hawke’s Bay to qualify for the Women’s Central League in 15 years.
The side is the youngest in the eight-team league; players range in age from 14 to 30, with just two of the squad out of their teens.
Some of those teens were just 10 or 11 when officials at Taradale AFC made the conscious effort in 2017 to promote the female side of their club.
Part of that process was looking at the established talent at the club and the level of youngsters coming through, of both genders, before deciding there was a greater chance of on-field success and a lasting legacy via a female programme.
“We, as a club, made a very conscious decision that women’s football was our opportunity to put ourselves on the map,” Cameron said.
“We were like, ‘Yep, this is what we are going to do, this is where we need to head.’
“We looked at what we had coming through [from both genders].
“We had a really strong group of girls - 10 and 11-year-olds - and we knew it was not a five-minute job. We knew that we couldn’t just go, ‘Let’s do this and enter a team and have it happen straight away.’ We knew it was going to be a long-term goal getting back into Central League.
“It has been slowly building over the last few years.”
Last year Taradale AFC boasted four women’s teams; equal the number of men’s teams at the club.
The women’s side of the club includes a development team featuring 14 and 15-year-olds. They also have an under-14 team in a new under-14 girls’ league.
The profile of women’s football in New Zealand is set to get a huge boost with the coming Women’s World Cup.
As well as the teams heading our way, VIPs including Hollywood star Natalie Portman will grace our shores. The actress co-founded LA-based women’s side Angel City Football Club. The club - which features in the Netflix reality series Angel City - was inspired by Portman’s dream of making women’s football as valued as men’s football throughout the world.
“We are trying to make sure there is a steady stream of girls coming through,” Cameron said of Taradale’s ambitions.
“We don’t just want to have a Central League for two years, and then fall off a cliff because we don’t have anyone else coming through.”
For the past two months Taradale AFC’s top women’s team have been doing something no female side has achieved for the past decade and a half; playing in New Zealand Football’s Women’s Central League.
What they may lack in age compared to their seven league rivals, the youthful team certainly makes up for in rising talent, determination and commitment.
And in some cases, they are also competing with more resources than men’s teams at Taradale, including priority when it comes to the use of the services of the club physio on game day.
The fact all their opposition is several hours away south down State Highway 2, the squad faces lengthy game-day return bus trips, including about 10 hours all up for matches in Wellington.
Heywood said she couldn’t speak highly enough of the commitment shown by her players.
Many juggled playing, travel and training commitments around their school studies. The travel factor meant several other older players – including those with families or work commitments – couldn’t make themselves available for a Central League campaign.
“It’s tough going there and back to Wellington in one day on a bus,” she said.
“It would be nice to have a couple of older girls in the squad, but the travel kind of deters them away. That’s why we have got a pretty young team.
“We are doing it for the love of it. You are expecting quite a lot of commitment from those involved, especially with the travel to away games ... that is your whole day gone.”
Heywood has witnessed closely the women’s football revolution at Taradale AFC. When she first joined the club there was only one women’s team available.
“To have now grown to four is pretty cool,” she said.
“And we cater for all different types, I guess you could say, from social to development team, to reserves, and then our team.
“The club has really gotten behind the growth of the women’s game and put a lot of time and effort into us. Most clubs are only interested in the men’s teams. So this is pretty cool.”
First-team veteran Cara O’Neill - and the side’s oldest player - has witnessed first-hand the gender transformation at Taradale AFC.
Into her eighth season with the club, the 30-year-old said she had been attracted to Taradale because of the way “they treat their women’s teams”.
“Previously clubs I have been at it was like a hand-me-down situation ... women were just the ‘other’ team really.
“This club really cares about building up their women’s players, and that is really important to me.
“When it comes to pushing the women and making the women feel supported, it is big. And the sponsorship is all for the club, not just for one team. It is like we are all in this together [across the club] ... you feel that you are backed by every single person in the club, everyone is backing you.”
O’Neill said it was exciting to be in the same squad as so many talented young players.
“But obviously they are all too young to drink on the bus on the way home,” she laughed.
“We have a couple of oldies in the team too, but it is good to have the young ones coming through and holding their own against the bigger girls.”
O’Neill said she was proud of the commitment shown by the teenage schoolgirls in the squad, including evening training during the week and giving up a Saturday or Sunday on game day.
“But it is something that the girls want to do.”
O’Neill’s personal commitment to the lengthy trips to away games includes giving up “that extra pay cheque” by not working on a Saturday.
“But this is what I love,” she stressed.
On the flipside experience-wise, fellow first-team member Olivia Harding is aged just 16.
A Year 12 student, she attends Napier Girls’ High School with several of her teammates.
Harding said she was proud to be beginning her senior football career with Taradale given their staunch support of its women’s programme.
She said the club provided a “cool environment”, with “very passionate” sideline support on matchday.
“That is really great to see for women’s football,” she said.
When Heywood’s players run out for home games at Taradale Park they are welcomed by staunch support.
And that comes from across the gender spectrum, including members of the club’s top men’s team who play in Central Football’s Federation League.
“All the blokes at the club are awesome too,” Cameron said.
“You wouldn’t catch any of the men’s teams making disparaging comments about any of the women’s teams.
“We get really good support down at the games. There are always close to 10 of the men’s Federation team that come down to watch the girls and they are there every weekend to watch.”
Having first played for the club, and now coaching the Taradale women’s reserves as well as being a committee member, Cameron said she was “proud” of the commitment her club had made to its female players.
And while it was great to see its top team back in the Women’s Central League, she stressed the hard work was far from over.
“We had this idea, goal and vision in 2017 and we have worked really hard off the field to make sure that all the right things were in place, making sure that we create the environment to attract the players that we need,” she said.
“It has been a long few years of making sure we had all the building blocks in place so the girls this year can do what they are doing. And we have to try to make sure that we have a strong foundation behind it [the women’s programme] so it is not just a five-minute thing, that it is something that we can offer girls in Hawke’s Bay for years and years to come.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014.