Sally Shipard on the Women's A-League Challenge

Sally Shipard takes to the field for Sydney FC this weekend. Sally updates us on the Inaugural Women’s A-league Challenge and her time in the Beckham Scrum.

Sally's post starts here:

The Inaugural Women’s A-league Challenge commenced 3 weeks ago

In sunny Newcastle. The Newcastle Jets team defeated Sydney FC 4-2. All players for both teams were notified one week in advance leading in to the opening game.

One week of preparation was not sufficient enough as most of the girls who had recently competed at the World Cup in China had been resting since their Quarter-final appearance against Brazil.

However there were 6 goals, so there was some entertainment for the growing crowd, as spectators began to arrive for the Men’s A-League clash between Central Coast Mariners (CCM) and the Newcastle Jets.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the game, after all the 3 game challenge is a trial to see how the Australian public react to a Female league.

After spending a week in Newcastle preparing for the match with my adopted team the Newcastle Jets, I made my way down to Sydney just in time to watch a ‘David Beckham’ training session. I was to complete a few days of work experience with a few different companies before heading home to Canberra.

It was very exciting to be watching the Galaxy train, although I must admit my eyes were trans-fixed on the mighty Beckham. Which I believe was the case for every journo and photographer who were present.

On the night of the match, I was in the media box with the journo’s from the Newspapers who were to write their stories for the following days print.

The majority of them had dead-lines for 12pm that night. It was fascinating to see how it worked. A very male dominated industry was something in which I noticed. Hopefully I will be one of the many women to influence that change. I was able to attend the post-match press conference.

I gained a great insight into the world of media that night and just how much of an impact one guy can have on a countries perspective of Football. Amazing!

Our A-league challenge re-commenced in Brisbane on the weekend just gone, a curtain raiser to the much anticipated Men’s game between the CCM and the Brisbane Roar.

The way in which the teams are selected for the games are quite simple, whichever Matilda or Young Matilda is available to play they get on the team sheet. The teams are as even as possible in order for the games to be competitive.

It would have been nice if there were more goals scored, the final score was only 1-0 to the Newcastle Jets.

The crowd would have been more involved if that were the case.

Hopefully this weekend in Sydney the match will be entertaining. As the purpose of these games is to ‘showcase’ what we are capable of and to make a positive impact on the Australian public, we want to prove to the FFA and a potential sponsor that if a Womens A-league competition was established, it would be more than viable.

Stay tuned for updates in December