Western Springs Football Club speak out following months of disputes with female players. The club said losing their Women’s Premier team would have been ‘devastating’. Video / NZ Herald
The board at Western Springs Football Club have spoken for the first time after months-long disputes, a mass exodus, sexism allegations and mediation from the club’s women’s premier team.
In an exclusive interview with the Herald, Western Springs chairman Grant Ramsay and fellow committee member Tracy Cunnington tell their sideof the story and speak about how they settled with their upset female players.
Ramsay said the ongoing disputes and many hours of meetings have been “a very difficult time for the club”, taking its toll on individuals, volunteers, staff and coaches.
“Family and jobs have taken a back seat,” he said.
“The club has had to keep running through all of this and there’s lots of things that we haven’t been able to do as a result of being focused on the mediation process.”
“Certainly, the women’s team made it clear to us they wanted to go faster.”
Ramsay said it’s been hard to make any major changes – like they have through mediation – because of Covid-19 and artificial turfs being redone in the last few years.
Ramsay said there’s been “lots of stress and pressure on club members through that period”.
“Possibly we didn’t get to some of these things as quick as we would have liked.
“We’re certainly pleased we’ve moved past the mediation.”
He said losing the premier women’s team would have been “devastating”.
“It’s enormously important. The thought of not having a woman’s team is unthinkable.”
Western Springs Women's Premier were runners-up in the New Zealand National League last year. Photo / Shane Wenzlick
The Herald investigated New Zealand’s largest club after a mass exodus of top women’s players who said they felt “completely disrespected” by the “highly misogynistic behaviour” of a predominately male board.
Ramsay was upset to hear these claims by the players.
“We didn’t quite understand all of that to be perfectly frank. And we don’t see ourselves as a misogynistic club and I don’t even like to refer to it,” he said.
“We’re a good club. We’ve got great people, run by great volunteers and coaches and staff, who do the best they can with the time they have.
“You know, they all have day jobs and other things to do.
“These big clubs running on a voluntary basis, representing, reflecting community values, it’s something we aspire to do and we’re pretty good at it actually.”
Cunnington addded: “We thought we were doing good – we obviously weren’t doing good enough.
“Everything that we’ve got through mediation now can just make us even better. And everyone can come along on the journey with us and that’s really important.
“We want those girls to be here and to see the change.”
Another issue the players initially raised was the club logo’s phallic likeness. It features a swan sitting over two large balls – which was labelled as inappropriate.
Western Springs Association Football Club's logo. Photo / WSAFC
Ramsay said hearing these concerns was “upsetting” to a lot of older club members.
“The way it’s been represented has been again hurtful to lots of members and life members and longstanding members in the club.
“It’s been in place since 1989 and it represents two football clubs, Point Chev and Grey Lynn coming together, and Western Springs and the Swans.
“I’ve been associated with the club for over 20 years. I hadn’t recognised or noticed any of those sorts of interpretations.”
He did, however, say there would be future discussions on this matter, stating there’s ”a significant cost and effort to change a club’s logo”.
There have been emails and conversations back and forth with club members ensuring them their club was a safe, inclusive place.
“There was a few that have obviously raised eyebrows, raised a few questions. But a few that actually said, [they] don’t quite believe [what the women’s team alleged],” Cunnington said.
“Hopefully the mediation shows that we are serious about building the women’s game.”
Ramsay said the general messaging has indicated “some miscommunications and misunderstandings” and issues that haven’t been dealt with adequately.
“We’re committed to doing the things that we’ve said and we’re getting the support of Northern Region Federation [and] New Zealand Football to do that, which is excellent.
“We’ll eventually have all those members back supporting the club, if they’re not already.”
Cunnington added: “Once we’re all on an even footing, we can just play football and know that they’ve got the backing of the board behind them.
“We’ll all shake hands and watch them and love watching them.
“We’re a big family here and we’ve had a little bump in the road like most families do, but we’ll all be fine at the end of the day.
“We’re here for each other and the game.”
A source close to the Herald has confirmed that Maia Vink, the former Wellington Phoenix women’s A-league analyst, will take over as head coach of the Western Springs women’s premier team, replacing Ryan Faithfull who was let go in May.
Vink’s addition won’t be immediate as she has recently been helping with the Football Ferns in their World Cup build-up.
Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME Sports team. She’s a keen footballer and worked with the Alternative Commentary Collective before joining the Te Rito cadetship scheme.
