GEORGE Young of Laurieton is one very proud father of three grown children. One of those children is a pioneer of Australian Women’s Football.
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Sharon Young represented Australia in women’s football (soccer) from the age of 18 until, at 32, she decided to get a job and pay off her mortgage.
“There were no government grants back then (in the 1980s and early 1990s),” Sharon said.
“We were the real pioneers doing it hard for the love of the game.”
She was one of the few players at the time to represent Australia in both the indoor and outdoor codes of the sport.
Until the early 1990s the burgeoning women’s (outdoor) team was known as the Australian Women’s Soccer Team, or the Female Socceroos.
“When FIFA decided to have a Women’s world Cup in 1992 it was decided the team needed a name,” Sharon said.
Her father George will tell you it was Sharon who came up with the name Matildas. And he’s right, but Sharon brushes off the recognition.
“It was one of the names put forward,” she said.
“I suggested the name Matildas after the mascot of the Brisbane Commonwealth Games.”
Matilda was a giant kangaroo, wheeled into the 1982 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony where she stole the show when she winked. Recently there has been a push for Matilda to make a comeback at the 2018 Commonwealth Games to be help on the Gold Coast.
But back to the football team.
Pioneers of Australian women’s soccer sat around a table at the Australian Institute of Sport in the early 1990s to decide on the name. Sharon’s suggestion was voted, carried and the rest is history.
Sharon played in the team’s first World Cup qualifying matches in the Oceania pool. The games were played in Sydney in May 1991 between Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. According to Geoff, Sharon was a great midfielder and defender.
It was New Zealand who edged Australia out of qualifying for that first World Cup in China by one goal. Since then the Matildas have always qualified for the World Cup, improving their results and placing at each tournament.
Sharon, who grew up in Sydney and played for the Wentworthville Warratahs as a junior, held coaching clinics in Laurieton after her father and late mother Pamela moved to the area.
She is now the operations manager at Star City and is still invited to events for the Matildas to help mentor new players.
Photos of Sharon’s playing days adorn the walls of Geoff’s Laurieton home, along with the ‘baggy green’ cap which is safely encased in a glass and wooden box on display.