We want to. (Even Steph, though her club doesn’t have a women’s team this season, which is TERRIBLE)

Liz’s reasons:

• Friends are going
• It’s local
• Getting out of the house on a Saturday night like a real person
• Footscray is STILL painted up in Bulldogs colours and I still have a lot of feels about the grand final
• This will be just like that but WITH WOMEN therefore better
• To annoy the people leaving comments on news articles about the AFLW.

Steph’s reasons:

• I just really love football, okay?
• Women can play sports
• Can you believe the Matildas get SO MUCH LESS MONEY than their male counterparts?
• That’s fucked
• Support your local women’s sportsball team
• People I am FRIENDS WITH think women playing football won’t be interesting or fun
• WOMEN think that
• When I was in primary school and going to lightening carnivals (compulsory), the choices were nettie and afl and all the girls went to nettie except for me, who went to afl, and I was one of only 2 girls there from like five schools, and I still think about that. I want the young girls in my life to genuinely be able to play footy if they want
• This article: AFLW: Balancing the hope and expectations of women’s football in its first season
• Also this article: The start of the AFL women’s competition is a great and bittersweet moment

On the eve of the inaugural AFL women’s competition, it feels like our time has come. Yet, I can’t help but think of the women who have come before. Women who, like me, were thwarted in their desire to play footy – real footy, in a real game, with proper equipment, on curated fields, tended by umpires and watched by crowds.

No, it’s fine, I don’t have anything in my eye.

See you on the weekend.