Matildas striker Sam Kerr has revealed that she had to disguise herself as a boy to get a match as a junior footballer before being forced to stop playing for her team as she had blue eyes due to rough play.
Matildas’ dream at the FIFA World Cup shatters both the perception of women’s sport and TV viewing records – but Kerr’s memories are a reminder that Australian football still has a lot of work to do.
Writing in her new book My journey to the World Cupthe Chelsea striker recalls cutting her hair short and pretending to be a boy as a junior for five to six years so she could take to the pitch in East Fremantle, just south of Perth.
“I knew I would be the only girl on the team, but I wasn’t worried about that,” Kerr wrote.
Before she was an international star, Kerr had to pretend she was one of the guys to get a game of soccer as a junior
Kerr is now one of Australia’s most recognizable athletes, enjoying huge popularity at the Women’s World Cup
Kerr cut her hair short with matte blonde ends so she could pretend to be a boy while playing soccer
“I didn’t want them to treat me differently just because I was a girl.
“I remember one of the boys crying when he found out.”
Kerr gave as best she could at first, but eventually the physicality got too much and her family had to step in when she came home with shocking injuries.
“As good as I was on the field and as much as I loved playing the game, the physical differences between the boys and me eventually became too pronounced and the game was too rough,” she wrote.
“One day I came home from a game with another black eye and a bloody lip, and my dad and brother both said, ‘Nup, this won’t happen again’.
Kerr was a talented footballer from an early age. She was also a cheeky child and was asked to leave school in year nine
“I got hit on the field so many times that it started to be a big problem. Dad and my coach then both sat me down and said it was getting too dangerous for me to continue playing.
“They said they were sorry, but I wasn’t allowed to play football anymore. I understood the reasons why, but I was heartbroken. At the time, there were no girls’ teams in my area that I could join, and it was devastating to know that I would never play a sport I loved so much again.”
However, that rough introduction to the sport saw Kerr become Australia’s top female footballer as she earned $650,000 per season playing for Chelsea in the UK.
That’s a great achievement in itself, considering Kerr also revealed in the Disney+ documentary series Matildas: The world at our feet that in year nine she was asked to leave school for being ‘naughty’.
Ellie Carpenter also played with and against the boys as a junior because there was no girls soccer team where she lived
Carpenter and Kerr along with Matildas teammates Caitlin Foord and Steph Catley celebrate their victory over France via penalties on Saturday night
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Another Matildas star who grew up playing with the boys was Ellie Carpenter, who dreamed of representing her country from an early age.
“Growing up I was on a boys team, I didn’t have a girls team,” Carpenter told the media after the 2-0 win over Denmark in the World Cup group of 16.
“When I was 12 years old I went to watch the Matildas game, and I think there were 300 people in the stadium, but they still wanted me to play for Australia.
“I still dreamed of playing on that field with the girls, and I think when I was 12 years old, watching sold-out houses at Stadium Australia, how great that is for them, young girls, young boys to do that to see .
“How far we’ve come is just unbelievable.”
The six-part documentary Matildas: The World at Our Feet is now available to stream on Disney+.