In 1975, a women’s football team from Australia travelled to Hong Kong to take part in an international tournament that has since been recognised as the first-ever women’s Asian Cup. They competed under the Australian coat of arms, wore hand-me-down uniforms given to them by the Socceroos, and faced the national teams from five other countries: New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. They finished third and won a bronze medal in front of over 10,000 spectators. But despite looking like a national team, sounding like a national team, and competing like a national team, this group has never been formally recognised by Football Australia (FA) as the first official Matildas side. Why? In 2022, a panel of historians was convened by FA to figure it out. That panel concluded that, unlike the other nations they faced in Hong Kong, this 1975 team was not chosen through a national selection process organised by its governing body. Instead, all but two of the players came from the same club — St George Budapest — who, throughout the early 1970s, were one of the most successful women’s club teams in NSW. Their formal participation in the Hong Kong tournament was also complicated. At the time, women’s soccer in Australia was run by the Australian Women’s Soccer Association (AWSA), but they did not have the authority to sanction any international activity in terms of overseas competitions. Instead, that power fell to the Australian Soccer Federation (ASF), the governing body who separately ran the men’s game and had no knowledge of or input into the women’s ecosystem. So when the Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) reached out to Australia in 1974 to participate in their Hong Kong tournament the following year, the invitation was first received by Pat O’Connor, who was the secretary of the AWSA at the time — as well as the captain of the St George Budapest team. Through O’Connor, the AWSA then nominated this New South Wales side to the ASF, who formally approved their participation in the tournament. As Elaine Watson OAM, vice-president of the AWSA in 1974, wrote in her book chronicling the history of the association: “Permission was given [by the AWSA] for a New South Wales team to accept an invitation to the Asian Cup which was to be held in Hong Kong in August 1975. “When NSW arrived in Hong Kong for the Asian Cup, they found that the organisers had publicised the team as the ‘Australian’ team. Without any background knowledge to place this designation in its proper perspective, the media in Australia adopted the terminology. “The AWSA later issued authorised lists of players who had competed from 1978 onwards and brought player profiles into line with this record.” The team included almost all the players from St George Budapest, with two other players from Ingleburn, a club in Sydney’s south-west. The Hong Kong side was captained by Pat O’Connor and coached by her husband, Joe, who was also the coach of St George. It wasn’t until the following year, 1975, that the AWSA resolved to use their National Championship competition, which was a tournament contested between state representative sides, to act as a national selection platform for future national teams. But many of those who went to Hong Kong believe otherwise. For the past five years, members of the 1975 team have been publicly campaigning for formal recognition as the first official Matildas. Amidst the hype of last year’s Women’s World Cup, and the spotlight that placed on the history of women’s football in Australia, many of “the 1975ers” felt left out of the conversation altogether. Some teamed up with sports brand Puma to raise their profile and advocate for official caps. This campaign was despite the decision from FA that the 1975 team were a club side that was not chosen via a formal selection process. “While a historically significant team, the team did not meet the criteria to be categorised as an Australian Senior Women’s National Team,” FA said in a statement in 2022. “This recommendation [from FA’s Panel of Historians] was considered and accepted by FA. In doing so, FA does recognise the 1975 team as the first women’s team to represent Australia in an internationally sanctioned tournament.” Indeed, so informal was the selection process that Julie Dolan — who is currently acknowledged as Australia’s first captain, and who was part of St George and the Hong Kong side when she was just 14 — was chosen for the tour based on the whim of the coach who, in a matter of seconds, unselected one older player in order to “bring the kid instead”. But under the leadership of new board chair Anter Isaac, FA have now revised their original decision and is set to announce the 1975 team as the first official Matildas. “Prompted by other Associations around the world reviewing their national team recognition policies, Football Australia was inspired to review the recognition of prior
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