By JULIA MONTESANO
HILLSIDE is a club renowned for its support towards the women of the EDFL.
The Sharks, together with Glenroy, swap the hosting duties each year of an annual ‘pink’ day, where the players and umpires don the pink to raise money for breast cancer awareness.
Now, Hillside boasts its own senior women’s team, where it will get an even greater opportunity to continue to promote the women in the league.
Hillside Women’s Co-Ordinator, Tanya Wright is excited about the upcoming season ahead, and hopes that the club can continue to build its female-friendly culture.
“We are hoping just to build senior women's footy at the club,” Wright told essendondfl.com.au.
“We want to make sure that they train hard, keep their fitness up, learn the game and have fun.”
In terms of training, Wright is happy with how proceedings are going down at Shark Park.
“I'm so pleased and proud of how they've been training really, really hard, pre- and post-Christmas,” she said.
Wright says the Hillside senior women’s side is a diverse one, with players of all ages donning the teal jumper this season.
“It'll range from like mid-early 20s- mid-late 30s,” she said.
“We've got quite a few mums.”
Wright admits that it was a slow start getting all the players down to the club, but the club now has a healthy list of players raring to go for the season.
“In the last month (of training) the numbers have slowly increased; word of mouth, social media, all of that sort of thing and especially after the practice match against Caroline Springs we had on the 4th of March,” Wright explained.
“We're now sitting at about 20-22 (players) with the full list.”
Wright says Hillside’s list is a unique one, highlighting that each player has their own strengths.
“They're all very unique in their own way,” she said.
“Obviously we have players that play other sports as well and there are some players that have played football previously.
“They all have their own unique strengths and we have some talls, some smalls.
“I'm just really proud of how they're all doing at the moment.”
If you would like to play football at Shark Park, please contact Women’s Co-Ordinator, Tanya Wright on 0403 161 679.
