The people of Euroa have always shared a strong bond when it comes to football.
Heading to Memorial Oval in force and travelling to surrounding Goulburn Valley towns in droves to play for and support their beloved Magpies, there isn’t much the people of the town love more.
And in 2023, a new generation of up-and-coming stars will get the opportunity to don the black and white and represent Euroa as it enters the Northern Country Women’s League Youth Girls competition for the upcoming season.
The brainchild of Melinda Watson, who is heavily involved with Euroa Football Netball Club and basketball in the region, the club will field a team in an under-14 pre-season competition before taking part in the Youth Girls season which begins in April.
This is Euroa’s second foray into Youth Girls football after it fielded a team in the Shepparton District Junior Football League competition in 2017 and 2018.
An important step in growing the women’s game in the Euroa area, Watson said it was her daughter Macey who served as her inspiration for driving this concept.
“I’ve been interested in girls footy for a while, I’ve coached junior teams when my daughter was coming through, but then she decided she didn’t want to play with the boys and there was nowhere else she could play,” Watson said.
“She ended up switching to soccer, but ever since she has been desperate to play, so I thought ‘right, we are going to do this and try and get a team up here at Euroa’.
“So while it started out being about my daughter, for me it is about giving girls the same opportunities boys get because they aren’t as good as boys, so that was the main inspiration behind getting this idea off the ground.”
Armed with an idea and inspiration, Watson then approached the Euroa Junior Football Club and was met with great support.
“They (Euroa) have been great in supporting this idea, there have been some really talented girls come through their boys program, but they see the need to have a girls team too,” she said.
“They think that more girls will get invested in the game if they started up this team, so we thought it was best to start with the under-18s and then go from there.
“I feel this is a great opportunity to grow the game further in Euroa and am confident the town will get right behind us.”
Now officially registered in the Youth Girls competition, the task for Watson and all involved is to get the word out and recruit as many players as possible.
Welcoming players of all abilities to come and get involved, she explained how she had gone about getting girls on board.
“To begin with I just started contacting people around town and they were all really supportive and keen to get involved, so we are having our first get-together this Sunday to get all the information out there,” she said.
“So hopefully as a result of that we can get a core group of girls together, I’ve currently got 10 girls which I think is a really good start.
“We will look to build that over the next few weeks and hopefully have a very competitive season.”
Euroa will host a meet the coach night at the club on Sunday from 5pm to 6pm, January 29 with all interested girls encouraged to attend.