Trailblazers of Football History

On the 28th of September 1918, Ballarat played host to a historic sporting event. With the end of the First World War in sight, the construction of a commemorative Arch of Victory and Avenue of Honour were proposed to pay respects to all the lives lost. But how to fund such a significant project? That's when a group of trailblazing women came together to stage one of the earliest known women's football matches in Aussie Rules history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
What's the earliest bit of AFLW gameplay that sticks in
your mind? Ebane Antonio racing towards the goalpost to put
Fremantle ahead of the Bulldogs in twenty twenty or the
Lions heading undefeated into the last round of twenty seventeen,
only for the match to end in a draw. What
if I told you women's footy dates back much much further, Nah,

(00:28):
even further than that. The First World War is raging
and our men and women have been fighting in the
trenches in Europe. Meanwhile, the topic of sport has divided
the nation. Some reckon it was a welcome distraction from
the war, but others thought those young fit bodies should

(00:50):
stop running around the noble and enlist instead. When war
broke out, sporting competitions all but stopped cricket first than footy.
Well mostly in country Victoria, and intrepid group of footballers
is about to kick a mighty goal. Hey, welcome to

(01:16):
the ballroom where we celebrate the winners, losers and the
weird stuff between. I'm Tony Armstrong and today I'm taking
you on a trip back in time to visit a
group of trailblazing women and their history making game. They

(01:41):
called them the Lucas Girls, more than five hundred women
who work at the E. Lucas and Cofactory in Ballarat.
The company was owned by one Eleanor Lucas. Like a
lot of people, Eleanor was deeply moved by the enormous
loss of human life during the war. To remember those
people who had died during the conflict, she proposed they

(02:03):
raised money to build a commemorati of arch and an
avenue of honor. That's a road lined with trees. But
something that big was going to cost a lot of money.
Lucky Eleanor Lucas was a bit of a fundraising maestro.
The Lucas Girls were prolific in their do good efforts

(02:24):
and their legend lives on in this gold rush town.
But one fundraiser in particular captured the hearts and imaginations
of locals. On the twenty eighth of September nineteen eighteen,
with the end of the war inside, the Lucas Girls
headed to the town hall to greet their visitors. They

(02:46):
were meeting the car Ke Girls, who were employees of
the Federal Carke Clothing Company. They traveled by train from
Melbourne for what would be a historic footy match. Newspapers
report almost the whole town had turned up for the festivities,

(03:06):
which included a procession complete with a bugle band and
an address from the mayor. Eventually, the crowd wound its
way to eastern Oval, where the Lucas girls in pink
and white costumes would tackle the Krgi girls in well
khaki and white. Despite ominous gray clouds and a cold

(03:29):
wind blowing, the rain held off. One paper reported the
whole scene was suggestive of a gala day. Allow me
to quote from the article directly. After a few preliminaries,
Umpy Bremner sounded the whistle, and from that moment both
teams threw themselves into the game as if they really

(03:50):
meant business. Lucas's girls showed more dash than their opponents,
but the Cargi girl's experience in the game enabled them
to adopt counteracting moves frequently told in their favor. Some
of the players displayed considerable aptitude and pace. According to reports,

(04:12):
it was a tough game. The first quarter finished with
the visitors ahead one point to nothing. Miss Parry of
the car Key girls kicked the first goal of the match,
and it looked like the away team might have it
in hand, but in the second quarter Miss Elsie Jones
was the first goalscorer for the home side. Then Miss

(04:34):
May Halfpenny kicked two in quick succession. In the final term.
The Lucas Girls were able to romp at home. They
even enjoyed the age old tradition of disagreeing with the
umpires at times. An unnecessarily stringent interpretation of the rules
by the umpire spoilt some interesting pieces of play. It

(04:54):
was said the newspapers a decidedly interesting game, with its
many novel and exciting incidents. The Lucas Girls were the
victors on the day, kicking twenty four points to the
car Key Girls. With eight newspapers as far away as
shepherd And and Geelong printed reports of the history making match,

(05:15):
and as far as fundraising went, it was a great success.
According to the Ballarat Stars metroport, an estimated seven thousand
spectators had flocked to Easternoval, the largest footy crowd in
Ballarat to date. It raised three hundred and thirty pounds
around thirty three thousand dollars in today's money. Eleven species

(05:41):
of trees were planted on the avenue of Honor. Many
women from the E. Lucas and Cofactory were directly involved
in both their planting and in loading bricks onto carts
for the construction of the arch. Their fundraising didn't just
stop on the football field either. Through clothing exhibition and
selling souvenirs, the Lucas Girls raised two thousand pounds to

(06:04):
plant nearly four thousand trees and a further two thousand,
six hundred pounds to build the arch, in total, the
equivalent of about half a million dollars today. In twenty eleven,
a new Ballarat suburb of Lucas was named for this
incredible group of women. Every street bears the name of
a soldier who died in the war, except one, the

(06:27):
main street, Eleanor Drive, the original Lucas Girl. Ballarat's Avenue
of Honor is the longest in the country at twenty
two kilometers, and the Arch of Victory still stands today
as its gateway. The inscription reads, this Arch of Victory
was erected and this Avenue of Honor planted by the

(06:48):
young ladies of E. Lucas and Co. In honor of
the sailors, soldiers and nurses of Ballarat who took part
in the Great War, the Lucas Girls, Razers Commemorators, footballers.

(07:13):
I'm Tony Armstrong and you've been listening to the pool
Room and iHeart production. I'll speak to you next time.