AFL apologises again to Goodes on night of female pioneer

Two months after the Herald Sun revealed Goodes was declining to accept induction into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, Goyder addressed the issue again at the start of Tuesday night’s ceremony.

He said the end of the dual Brownlow Medallist’s AFL career was an incredibly difficult period that caused great hurt for the Indigenous great.

Goyder’s comments came as part of his address to launch one of the league’s most significant nights — recognising its greatest players and coaches throughout history.

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Former West Coast and Carlton champion Chris Judd was inducted at the awards ceremony last night for his stellar 279-game career from 2002-15, while St Kilda champion Nathan Burke, West Australian star Robert Wiley and Victorian women’s football pioneer Debbie Lee were the other new names to be honoured.

The night also featured the elevation of two members to legend status: ex-South Australian state captain and coaching mastermind Jack Oatey, along with brilliant WA player and triple Sandover Medallist Merv McIntosh.

READ DEBBIE LEE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE GAME BELOW

Goodes was driven from football six years ago due to racism but it took until 2019 for the AFL to unreservedly apologise for not supporting him.

Goyder said Goodes’s record spoke for itself and he had been a unanimous selection to be inducted but knocked it back at this time.

“Adam Goodes is one of the greatest players in our game’s history and has given our game more than it could ever return to him with his service on and off the ground,” Goyder said.

“The conclusion to his AFL career with the Sydney Swans was an incredibly difficult period that caused great hurt for Adam and the subsequent time it took for the game to recognise and apologise for this hurt also had a very significant impact.

“Our failure to stand with him at the time it was happening and call out what was happening was a stain for our game.

“We wish only the best for Adam as a husband and father, and leader within our community.”

In June, when Goodes’s Hall of Fame decision became public, Goyder said the league did not do enough to stand with the Swans superstar.

“The unreserved apology that the game provided him in 2019 was too late, but, on behalf of our Commission and the AFL, I apologise unreservedly again for our failures during this period,” he said.

“Failure to call out racism and not standing up for Adam let down all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players, past and preset.

‘We hope that there will be a time in the future when Adam will want to be connected to the game again.

“This is a decision for Adam and Adam only and we understand and respect his choice.”

Norwood champion Garry McIntosh also declined to accept entry after being endorsed for induction.

McIntosh, a dual Magarey Medallist, former Redlegs captain, two-time best and fairest and state skipper, was selected into the SA Football Hall of Fame in 2012.

“He said that while he appreciated the thought behind this honour, he had never sought personal acknowledgment from football, that his time in the game had passed him long ago and he was content with the friendships he had built at The Parade and his time in the game,” Goyder said.

Trailblazer who helped put women’s footy on map

After spending 15 minutes going through her extraordinary career as one of the pioneers of women’s football in this country, Debbie Lee pauses for reflection and comes to this conclusion.

“The next generation are going to have a complete pathway and feel OK to play footy,” Lee says. “I think that is the most important thing for me.

“Women and girls now say they play footy and they are proud and they feel good about it. That is the most pleasing thing out of the whole journey for me.”

That journey started back in 1991 when as a 17-year-old high school student from Pascoe Vale she came across an article in the local newspaper about women playing footy.

She had learnt to love the game by having a kick with her brothers and other kids in the neighbourhood so she convinced a friend to come down with her and check out the East Brunswick Scorpions.

They liked what they saw but kept it a secret until later that year Lee got up the courage to tell some of her school friends.

“I was in Year 12 and I was in the Grand Final playing for the East Brunswick Scorpions and in the lead-in to that game I decided to reveal it to a couple of my friends in school with hesitation,” she recalls.

“Back then in the ‘90s it wasn’t fun playing women’s footy, it wasn’t something that people congratulated you for or admired you for.

“They often belittled you. It was a mockery, people didn’t quite understand why women wanted to play the game and they took this approach of ‘Oh we are trying to outdo the men’. They just couldn’t understand the fabric, the philosophy and reasons behind it.”

Two years later Lee’s new career reached a crossroads after the Scorpions folded. So what did she do? She took matters into her own hands and formed a new team, Sunshine YCW.

“I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’,” she says. “I have just found a group of people who have the same passion as me.

“So I went off at 19 and started a team in the western suburbs, Sunshine YCW Spurs. I just connected with all my friends and all of those who I had either played sports with or against.

“Our first game I still recall vividly. We turned up with yellow t-shirts, blue bike pants and sticky tape numbers.”

She soon became the playing president of the Victorian Women’s Football League which started with one division of seven teams and then grew to 24 teams across three divisions.

“I was a playing president which just presented a whole heap of different challenges within my own community, particularly when there was a draw and I was the captain of the team and there was a draw that I was playing in,” Lee says.

“I was the president so I had to figure it out on the field but you have got to remember we were doing this with no help from AFL Victoria, this was just us with great volunteers and passionate people.”

Lee points out several pivotal moments in the growth of the women’s game beginning with formation of a national carnival which was where she believes the seed for the AFLW was born.

“The first decision maker who really listened and heard what we were trying to do was Sam Mostyn, she was on the AFL Commission at the time and she was amazing,” she says.

“We were in Sydney for the national carnival and she came along and I still remember walking beside her talking about women’s football and I think she really helped early on at her level although it took a long time.”

Getting a major sponsor, ANZ, on board at the VWFL was significant which enabled the creation of a football operations manager and then the exhibition series between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs gained unexpected traction.

“I think what it did, it provided a platform for others to see,” Lee says. “They were intrigued and Mike Fitzpatrick, who was the AFL chairman at the time, came down I remember into the changerooms.

“He couldn’t believe the talent, the physicality, the passion and the application of the girls. This wasn’t a kick and a giggle, this was something that they wanted to prepare to do, to become a footballer as an athlete.

“That was in my view the catalyst for the AFLW as you see it today.”

Lee finally hung up her boots at the age of 40 after 302 games with a CV bursting with achievements including five-time competition best-and-fairest winner, six-time All-Australian and three-time premiership player.

“I probably played longer than I wanted because the Spurs, the club I formed, were going through a bit of change and it was challenging at times in terms of just keeping it alive so a few of us continued to play and rebuild the club which we did thankfully.

“That team is still thriving now. We went to St Albans for a while and now they are the VU Western Spurs with their home ground across the road from the Merv Hughes Oval.”

Lee, who is now the Western Bulldogs AFLW football boss, believes the AFLW expansion to include all 18 AFL teams will help accelerate the push for female footballers to become full-time athletes like their male counterparts.

“That’s the natural progression,” she says, adding that more female coaches is also a priority.

But for the latest member of the AFL Hall of Fame, there is something she sees every night driving home to Gisborne which warms her heart the most.

“You drive around local areas and there are girls kicking the footy in parks. It is just amazing to see these young girls pick up the footy now and that’s what I enjoy.”

Originally published as Australian Football Hall of Fame 2021: Women’s footy legend Debbie Lee inducted as league again apologies to Adam Goodes