I made a new year's resolution to join a women's soccer team, and a couple of months ago, I did, and it's turned out to be one the best things I've done in recent times.
After not playing soccer for over a decade since high school, I joined a team in Sydney's Eastern suburbs. I tried out for the team so I felt like I earned my place. After winning the first game, my team has been consistently losing. Many team members have become disheartened, and as of this week I'm going to take responsibility for motivating them, because we're good learners and can win!
I think we're playing a reasonable level of football, and appreciate how quickly our team learns from training to match play. For me this is the best thing about the team. Plus I'm amazed that we have volunteer coaches, guys, that give up their time to train us, well! It's taken my understanding of football to a higher level and love the game even more. I love being part of a team, it does have ups and downs, and for me that's part of the fun and the challenge.
I started my women's football personal campaign a about 16 months ago, and it wasn't that easy to find football activities at first. There's no centralised point for women's football if you just want to start playing. Also, if you're not in the know, and if you don't have the right search terms you won't find football to play! I was googling 'women's soccer', but I should have used the search terms 'football' and 'futsal'.
I have a new life goal to get as many people as I can into the game. Then I will always have a soccer team to play with! Hardly anyone would disagree that it gives you good team working skills, as well as keeping you coordinated and fit.
My soccer journey so far:
March 2009 I signed up to Soccerfit located around Sydney, which is a one-hour soccer skills and fitness session, for some basic soccer skills. It has proved to be a great base for my soccer playing ability. My whole body was sore for the first couple of lessons, but my soccer fitness has improved vastly since. I did this once a week, on and off for about 9 months.
June 2009 - I met a girl at a party, and joined up to her social soccer team. It's mixed team in a competition where media companies play against each other socially. I managed to score one goal in the season, and was awarded best girl midfielder in the comp.
September 2009 - my friends and I started a 6-a-side soccer team in Sydney's inner west suburb of Croydon. It was hard getting enough players, but finally we got enough to register. We finished second last in the bottom division, but we had fun and learnt lots.
February 2010 - we entered into another 6-a-side soccer competition. We made it to the semis, but lost.
May 2010 - I joined a full-side outdoor soccer team. I scored a goal in the first game, but I injured my knee too. For the next few weeks I played goalie about every second week. It was utterly nerve racking and scary at first, but I got used to it. It gave me a whole new perspective of the game, which helps with being a forward. I was very happy to go back to playing again, and have rotated around the field a lot, being in the front, wing, centre midfield, goalie and backs. The only other major position I haven't been is centre back. I continued on my 6-a-side team and I think I improved significantly, with the field seeming much smaller than the full field. I finished that comp yesterday when we lost our division 2 semi.
There is much more football to come, and maybe I'll help bring football to others and look out for some volunteer work.
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