What Port’s AFLW entry means ahead of 2023

With the AFLW season three rounds in, the preparations for four more teams to enter the competition next year are well underway.

One of those teams is Port Adelaide, and The Inner Sanctum spoke with fan Christine Organ to speak about the importance of her club entering the competition.

“The importance of Port coming into the AFLW means we have then gone full circle in our club competing with the other clubs in the comp,” she said.

“It means with our women coming in to complete our club, we are then performing at top level.

“Giving our young supporters amazing female role models to aspire too, just like our male ones.

“What an amazing asset to our club and its ongoing glorious history.”

Many girls around the country love and look up too footballers and what they can achieve in their careers, but for many years women have never had the chance to work their way up to the AFL podium.

The AFL Women’s competition being completed as of 2023 means these women can now play for the team they’ve looked up to since they were kids.

Last year, Port Adelaide chief executive Matthew Richardson summed it up perfectly.

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“Some would say 150 years, women have had an enormous role to play in football club, just not on field. Now we get to complete that journey,” Mr Richardson said.

“There was a Showdown, I think in 2003, 2004 that Jenny Williams was really instrumental in the role that so many women over so many years have played in our club.

“While AFLW licence submission has probably been a real focus for the last 12 months, it’s really a journey that’s been going for a lot longer than that.

“This room that we’re in now probably hasn’t had anything done to it for 60 or 70 years, which is a bit scary in itself.
In the next couple of weeks that redevelopment work under here begins.

“The first stage is the renovations of the changerooms through the Williams Stand, which will allow for these change rooms to become AFLW compliant, which will be great for AFLW but also for the community sport.

“One of the one of our visions for the precinct here is that it gets used more as a venue for junior girls and boys in the district.”

Now, it means, as a supporter myself, I’ll be able to support them at every game possible.

As a female who loves football, I’ll now be able to look up to these amazing women in addition to our men’s side.

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