Bentleigh Girls Unite!

Written by Tara Supple.

On Monday 30th June 2022, the Bentleigh Football Netball Club Senior Women’s team had the privilege and opportunity to be invited down to a combined training session with the U12, U14 and U16 girls from the Bentleigh Junior Football Club at King George Reserve on what was an icy night.

However, the weather could not keep the numbers down, with almost 70 girls and young women ready to train under the lights. The first training session of its kind for our clubs, it was fantastic to see the interactions between some of our tallest and some of our smallest competitors. After gentle encouragement from some of the older participants and coaches it was great to see every single one of the participants get into each drill that was organised by the coaches of each team.

Declan Reeve, the coach of the U16s who has also assisted the Senior Women’s, pointed out that even though many of the young women training together had never met, let alone played football together; they could one day all be pulling on the jumper for the Bentleigh Football Netball Club Senior Women’s team.

After a delicious few slices of pizza for dinner we were also treated to two guest speakers: Hannah Macdougall and Suzie Betts. Hannah, a Paralympian who has represented Australia in both swimming and cycling, shared with us how she has overcome challenges and shared some of her most important life experiences and lessons. Whilst Suzie, the founder of Boob Armour, shared with the group the importance of her product; amidst giggles from some of the younger audience.

Training sessions like these will start to build strong relationships between all involved and will hopefully lead to an even bigger and stronger women’s football program that will be the envy of our opponents for years to come.