Female Football

At Lara United FC we're proud to support and promote females in football, both on and off the pitch. Our new club rooms and female friendly change rooms were funded under the Change our Game program and reflect all the work and dedication we've shown to supporting women and girls in football over the years. With over 100 female players in 2019, we're continuing to work on our programs and build our understanding of how we can best develop our girls to be reach their full football and personal potential. In 2019 we participated in the Barwon Game Changer pilot program and completed the FFV's Female Friendly Football pilot program in 2017. With a dedicated Female Football Coordinator, a committee that is over 60 per cent women, dedicated and highly qualified senior women's coaches and five female coaches across the club, we're able to offer a fun, positive and rewarding program for any girl interested in playing football or becoming a football coach or administrator.

This- Girl- Can- Victoria - MREC- 30 0x 250 ( 002)

fun fit football pre-register

2019 COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

This year saw three of our junior females representing Lara in the Geelong rep squads at the Country Championship Tournament in Albury. Mollie Hill, Jasmine Naraghi and Alanah Pettman were all selected to take part and spent weeks training for the regional team as well as their own team back here at Lara in preparation for the tournament, which took place over the Queen's birthday long weekend.

Alanah played in the U12 girls team and scored two goals over the course of the weekend. The team were runners up in their semi-final, finishing up in third place.

62116929 715241078908837 5653086691443867648 n

64396626 2362847263809013 7036578163807223808 n

Jasmine and Mollie formed part of the U16 girls team and after a weekend full of wins, the team finished up champions with a Grand Final win against Albury.

The girls all formed new friendships with team mates from other Geelong clubs and had a fun weekend both on and off the pitch.

Lara United has a proud history of female representation at the Country Championships Tournament. Over the years we've had several coaches and players representing us at the tournament in various locations around the State. Country Champs, as it's known, is a fantastic opportunity for players to meet other talented players from our region and to develop their skills in a short term, intensive training program in the weeks leading up to the long weekend event. We congratulate this year's girls who took part and look forward to seeing more of our talented young female players take the stage at next year's comp.

FEMALE FOOTBALL WEEK

Screen Shot 2019- 05- 13 at 1. 50. 47 pm

Female Football Week ran from 7th - 13th May. To celebrate all of the fabulous female players we promoted FFW with a range of events over the week.

We began with a 'Run the Line' training session for junior mums, to encourage them to learn the offside rule and feel confident enough to put their hand up and run the line, ensuring they get to help out with their child's team and club through ways outside of the traditional 'canteen mum' role. Our senior women played an intra-club practice match during the line running training session and afterwards everyone was rewarded with delicious purple FFW cupcakes.

During the week following, our Under 14 girls and senior women were all given the official Female Football Week purple shoelaces to wear over the weekend and show their support.

To celebrate women and girls in football, and as part of our return to Lara Recreation Reserve, we put up a photo wall displaying images of all our current junior and senior female players and female coaches. The wall took centre stage in front of the change rooms with a Female Football Week banner above. The photos highlighted the girls skills with action shots from the first three rounds of this season and were admired by all junior and senior players and visitors over the weekend. The girls also enjoyed seeing themselves in action, spending time searching for themselves on the FFW Lara United FC female footballer wall of fame.

The players decked themselves out in the complimentary FFW purple headbands, ribbons and temporary tattoos before taking to the pitch to show everyone just how strong, talented, fabulous and supportive of each other, they all are.

Our female administrators all donned the official FFW purple caps, some even joined in the face tatt look.

And our MiniRoos girls weren't left out. Some of them were lucky enough to walk the referee out for the State League Women's game on Sunday afternoon, and at half time they showcased their talents and love of the game with a game of their own on the main pitch in front of the crowd who had come down to support the girls.

Given that Mother's Day just happened to fall on the same weekend as FFW, we organised flowers for our junior and senior girls to give to their Mums or women of special significance before having those same women walk them out onto the pitch before kick off.

A big thanks to all the players, mums, aunties, grandmas and best friends who came down to support our girls, and well done to all the players who whole heartedly took part in the week.