ALTONA Junior Football Club midfielder Shae-Lee Murphy-Burke last week visited Altona Primary School on a recruitment drive for more girls to take up Australian rules football.
Murphy-Burke has just been selected for the Victorian AFL Youth Girls under-18 side, which will play in a national competition in Adelaide on Sunday.
During the school visit, Murphy-Burke and her teammate Kacie Cook did a Q&A session at assembly with physical education teacher, Sunbury footballer Simon Clarke. The pair are looking for girls aged 9-12 for the Altona under-12 girls side they will coach this season.
Murphy-Burke said there was still work to be done on changing the attitudes of people, especially boys and mums, towards girls playing footy.
Murphy-Burke started playing the game in 2008 in the under-14s, much to her mum Kerri Murphy’s consternation. “Mum wouldn’t let me play football because her view on it was that it was rough and I would get hurt, and it wasn’t a girl’s sport. She thought I would only play one year.”
But, playing alongside boys, Murphy-Burke won the Vikings’ under-14 best and fairest award by 56 votes. She said her mum’s attitude had changed “100percent” – to the extent she’s now in her fourth year as the Youth Girls’ team manager.
“I won best and fairest so everyone at the club was shocked at my ability and they didn’t want me to go. So we pushed to get a girls’ team.”
In 2009, Murphy-Burke played for Victoria’s first secondary school girls’ under-16 team.
Next year, she will join Altona Football Club’s women’s side, which was formed this year.
AJFC registrar Sandra Wilson says the club is one of only two in the Western Region Football League to get the three strands of female football up this season. Deer Park is the only other side that has the three strands: under-12s, Youth Girls and women over 18.
“Girls can no longer play with boys after 14 years of age by AFL ruling; that’s why it’s important to get behind the female-only teams,” Wilson says.
Girls interested in playing footy at AJFC should phone Sandra Wilson on 0432161777.
