by Sal Rees was a groundbreaking Victorian footballer, the first woman to nominate in the men’s AFL draft.
Women have played a major role in Australian Rules football right from the start. One of the reasons the local code caught on in the first place, was that it drew so many female supporters.
‘Sketches and photographs from the earliest decades of the game supplemented reporting of the remarkable number of women in the crowd. Newspaper articles described females sitting stoically in the rain, decorating their prams in the club colours, yelling abuse at the umpire, even leaning over the boundary to jab them with a hat pin or umbrella.’
‘Play On! The Hidden History of Women’s Football’, Bruentte Lenkic and Rob Hess
But for many years, women’s participation in the sport was restricted to spectating. No women’s footy was played at all until the 1910s, and subsequent efforts to create an organised league were sporadic and largely stymied (read more about the origins of women’s football in Australia, here).
This would not meaningfully change until the 1980s.
In 1981, an open age women’s competition was played in Melbourne for the first time. Called the Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL), this initially comprised four teams: Broadmeadows Scorpions, Hallam Cobras, Epping Blues, and Princes Hill Dodgers.
The league was born out of underage competitions, that were organised between schools across the city. While these were popular, once high school was finished the players had nowhere to continue.
One of the driving forces behind the new league was Gemma Griffiths.
Griffiths was a teacher at Preston Technical College, and had organised a girl’s football team there. She also came from a footballing background: two of her great uncles had captained Geelong in the VFL.
Griffiths saw the lack of women’s footy as simply unfair.
‘Why was it that men got to play footy but not women, when it was so much fun? Why did they get all the glory in life?’
Gemma Griffiths
She received support from other teachers, and began to lobby the VFL to endorse a women’s league. Despite some initial resistance, this was eventually given, and the new competition launched on May 31, 1981.
The first season was modest, with a handful of rounds and a Grand Final between the top two teams. Griffiths turned out for the Broadmeadows Scorpions, who won the initial flag.
The next decade would be one of struggle for the fledgling league. Stability was an issue; teams came and went, and player turnover was high.
Women’s football received little support from the VFL. Resources were scarce, and teams played on lower grade suburban ovals, often with second hand equipment; media coverage was almost non-existent.
An article in ‘The Age’ in 1986 highlighted some of the obstacles:
‘The VWFL has been struggling for survival since its inception. Its problem is not lack of interest among women. Many women play football socially, but are reluctant to play for the league on a regular basis. The reasons for this are complex: the image of football as a ‘man’s game’, fear of injury, lack of financial rewards, and social pressures to leave the game after marriage.’
Fiona Capp, ‘The Age’
Nevertheless the VWFL endured, finding enough enthusiastic new participants to keep going. One of these was Sally ‘Sal’ Rees.
Rees was born in 1966 in Mallacoota, a small town on Victoria’s east coast.
Her family had connections to Melbourne, and she frequently spent time in the city. It was a footballing family: everyone barracked for a club, and several of her male relatives had played for Brunswick.
Rees learned to kick a footy for the first time at her grandfather’s house in Coburg.
Relocating to Melbourne after finishing school, Rees was determined to play herself. In 1990 she joined the VWFL side, the Fairfield Falcons.
By 1990, the league had reconfigured itself as a seven team comp; four of the clubs were in the city, and three in regional areas. This provided a greater opportunity for women to participate, but the same problems as the 1980s remained.
Rees found challenges on field as well.
Establishing herself at full back, she was named the league’s most consistent player in 1991. But the Falcons were one of its weakest sides, and struggled to be competitive.
‘Thrashings were the norm for her club. At Ballarat one deep-winter’s afternoon, Rees recalls kicking the ball back into play so often her foot ached. At the other end, where the action never reached, the opposing full-back went and sat in a car behind the goals.’
Peter Hanlon, ‘The Age’
But Rees was determined to help her team, and the league, improve.
In 1992, she became the league’s registrar, and began lobbying the VFL for greater support. She argued for better equipment and facilities, and highlighted the health benefits that came from women’s sport.
She also sought to raise the game’s profile. To this end, in 1995 she hatched a bold scheme: Rees would nominate for the men’s AFL draft.
She filled in the nomination forms, and sent them off. A few weeks later, she received an envelope with the AFL logo on the front: her nomination had been accepted.
There was nothing in the rules at the time, that prevented a woman from participating. AFL Operations Manager Ian Collins later said, he thought the application was ‘a joke’.
Or at least, a typo.
Word soon leaked to the media, and Rees received a call from Channel 7. On draft day, a news crew came to the Fairfield service station where she worked, to interview her; the story aired near the top of the evening news.
While she had no realistic chance of being drafted, Rees thought the nomination would make a point.
‘There were a lot of articles in the media that were quite negative and generally people’s concept was that women shouldn’t be playing football. The message was that women do play football and we needed to be heard and taken seriously.’
Sal Rees
Despite some negative commentary, the huge amount of discussion generated did help raise the profile of women’s football.
It seemed no coincidence that the year after Rees nominated for the draft, Fairfield won the VWFL Premiership for the first time.
Rees would play in the VWFL for another decade. Off field she would continue her work as an administrator, growing and promoting the game.
In 2000, Rees helped the Falcons move from Fairfield to Darebin, where the local council were willing to sponsor the team. There they played out of much improved facilities at McDonnell Park.
The change brought a run of success: the Darebin Falcons won five consecutive Premierships, from 2006 – 2010. Shortly before this streak began, Rees became the first woman to play 200 senior games.
Draebin Council would later expand their women’s sport program to include soccer, rugby and cricket teams.
The VWFL would continue to grow over the following decade. Eventually it would contains dozens of clubs spread across multiple divisions, and more than 1000 active players.
It grew so large, that in 2013 it was absorbed administratively by the AFL. The AFL would then create an elite women’s competition a tier above the VWFL: this was the AFLW, which launched on Friday, February 3, 2017.
The first match saw Collingwood play Carlton, in front of a sold out crowd at Princes Park. Rees was among the attendees: women’s football had come a long way from playing in front of a few spectators in the suburbs.
Rees would continue to work behind the scenes with the AFLW, offering advice and mentorship to a new generation of players.
‘She threw her hat in the ring to prove a point, and ask the question why can’t women play footy. She was an amazing person, she always lit up the room she was in. She had a beautiful presence and being around her was really special.’
Darcy Vescio, Carlton AFLW Captain
The football community was rocked when she was struck down by a brain aneurysm, in December 2024. Rees passed away in hospital a few days later, surrounded by family members, and her wife Barb.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said, the AFLW would have been ‘impossible’ without pioneers like Sal Rees.
