During Campbell Rose’s time as CEO of the Western Bulldogs, there was a clear multipronged approach to the revival of the business bottom line and the repositioning of the club in the community. One of those prongs, critical but understated, was women’s football.
In the mid-2000s, Debbie Lee approached Campbell in her role as head of the Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL). ‘Debbie had been to other, wealthier clubs, but she was treated as though women’s football was something of a sideshow’, recalls Campbell. ‘I invested in it because I could see women’s football had something to offer … I employed Debbie at the Western Bulldogs, at first on a part-time basis. We started to genuinely develop women’s football. Over time, and as the club’s finances improved, Debbie became full-time.’ But, says Campbell, there was a lot of resistance: ‘Funding this was no small task, as I was constantly reminded that women’s football was not the main game. There was significant pressure on me to redirect the funding that was being spent on Debbie, and the work she was doing, into the forty-six players on our list’.
Campbell adds that, all the while, Sue was watching from the sidelines, and doing what she could: ‘Although our club was left behind, much to my disappointment and chagrin, when money went to the Melbourne Football Club to develop women’s football, Sue continued to support the women’s game and to work with Debbie in her new role at Melbourne. Since then she’s nurtured it and she has brought it back to the Western Bulldogs, so it’s come full circle’.
While in the role of women’s football operations manager at the Melbourne Football Club, Debbie remained head of the VWFL, and in 2008 she asked Sue to be a guest speaker at a VWFL lunch. Leesa Catto, the VWFL media manager at the time, recalls what happened: ‘We’d received a grant for $6000 from the state government and we put on a lunch after the country metro game. It was the first time we’d ever put on a lunch and hosted a speaker. Sue ended her speech with “I’d like to give you $25 000”. We were all nearly crying’.
This donation enabled the appointment of a part-time football operations manager, which was fundamental to the league’s ability to continue. But according to Debbie Lee, its impact was even more significant: ‘While the money was great, it was also the very first time that someone heard me and genuinely wanted to help. Sue’s interest and her contribution revitalised all the volunteers—it made everyone feel valuable’. Over the years, Sue has put more than $100 000 into women’s football.
Debbie says she first saw Sue’s leadership in action during her time at the Western Bulldogs: ‘Sue’s a very ethical person, so if the club was behaving in a way that didn’t align with her values, she would speak up. She has strong views about being a good citizen and she expects that from other people’. Debbie adds that ‘Sue is about equality, but she doesn’t get caught up on the female and male stuff’. She says Sue understands ‘that it’s about the behaviours, not the gender’.
This is a defining aspect of Sue’s approach to equality. Fiercely dismissive of hackneyed terms and what she considers to be unproductive conversation, Sue focuses on, as she puts it, ‘being the change she wants to see’. While there are unquestionably structural barriers for women to overcome, and a powerful set of stereotypes operating in Australia, Sue’s approach is all about action, and as a result she has become a role model in many areas that are perceived as overwhelmingly male-dominated. Sue recalls ‘an occasion where the former chief of the AFL treated myself and a group of female directors like schoolchildren being reprimanded by the headmaster. I took offence at being lectured when I was acting in a voluntary capacity—what I had done was my own business, not his. At all times I treated him with respect and I expected the same from him. I am pleased to say that our relationship was respectful afterwards’.
Sue also talks about nearly always being the only woman in the room during her time in the construction industry: ‘Working with Angelo, I was the one who dealt with the contracts and managed the payroll and all the paperwork. The men would go to Angelo for issues about the job, but he would send them to me for everything else—he’d tell them to go and see The Boss. I was also the one who had all the contact with the unions. And it was tough back then. The industry was very corrupt. We never, ever got involved in any of that. We were one of the very few building companies that didn’t’.
Sue remembers turning up for a meeting with some union representatives wearing her usual skirt, fine jewellery and heels: ‘They didn’t really know what to do. I don’t think they’d ever had a woman in heels onsite before. They were practically tearing the girlie posters off the walls in front of me in a panic. But they were very nice and polite, and so was I’. Indeed, Sue says the fact that the union reps weren’t used to dealing with women actually worked in her favour.
It is now well accepted that the Australian Rules football supporter base is roughly even across genders—if anything, more females now follow the game than males. What is less well known is that Aussie Rules has a history of women’s clubs dating back to the early 1900s. According to Brunette Lenkic’s Play On: The Hidden History of Women’s Australian Rules Football, there were earlier opportunities, but the suggestion of a women’s football club in 1880 didn’t go ahead as it was considered ‘a little too advanced’. And by 1910, while women were reported as playing in games that were ‘carnivalesque’, in fact, the women were typically men in drag.
Western Australia is the state credited with the strongest movement for women’s involvement in the sport. It was in Perth in 1915 where women began playing Aussie Rules in organised teams. A photograph of a female team in WA in 1917 shows the players dressed all in silk: skirts, blouses and stockings, with jockey-style peaked caps. A year later, news reports from Adelaide described a game that started as light entertainment—a novelty match—but became intensely competitive by the second quarter. As quoted in Play On, when ‘the girls settled down to play, the spectators became surprised with the skill that was exhibited’.
It wasn’t until the early twenty-first century, however, that there was a seismic shift in women’s football, even though it mostly occurred behind the scenes. A number of key individuals, inspired by Sue’s injection of cash and confidence into the VWFL, embarked on sustained efforts to get women into the footy playing picture. At the AFL Commission, where for many years there had been lacklustre support for this idea—a lack of genuine interest—Sue’s persistent questioning and financial backing were matched by an administrative grind by Debbie Lee and Jan Cooper and executive positioning from Sam Mostyn and Linda Dessau. And it was not solely women doing the work—Simon Lethlean, Josh Vanderloo and Gillon McLachlan are three of many men who showed an active, ongoing commitment to a women’s league.
Meanwhile, Leesa Catto continued her long and tireless campaign to keep the women’s game on the radar through publicity and solid media relationships. Leesa notes the development of Sue’s ‘media savvy’ over time: ‘She did more than financially support us. She came to games, she talked in the media about how good it was, who we were and so on. She actively promoted women’s football and helped significantly to raise the profile’.
A report into female participation in the AFL dating back to 2010 included, as an aspirational plan, a women’s competition by the end of that decade. This was popularly translated to mean the women’s game might be introduced in 2020. But Sue and many others thought it could, and should, be done earlier—they wanted it launched in 2017. This goal was bolstered by several women’s football exhibition matches, led by the Melbourne Football Club and the Western Bulldogs, which showed great promise. The first was played in 2013, with another a year later and then two in 2015.
The tipping point came when the last of these games was broadcast on free-to-air television on 16 August 2015. It was an undeniably tough and competitive match, and the skill levels took everyone by surprise, just as they had back in 1918. Audiences were riveted watching the women play with the same style and intensity of the professional men: there were long-legged kicks, solid hip-and-shoulders, full-body tackles, high-leaping marks and spectacular sprints. The only incongruity, a slight difference that was at first difficult to pinpoint, was the frequent flick of ponytails. The television ratings went through the roof—more than a million people across the country tuned in—and the feedback from viewers was beyond enthusiastic.
The team at the AFL was ecstatic, and Sue made the most of the opportunity. As Colin North notes, ‘With Gillon McLachlan coming on board, Sue got into his ear’. On his part, Gillon acknowledges that it was a team effort to get the competition pushed forward. In particular, he recognises that Sue gave the endeavour a cachet it might otherwise not have had: ‘Sue’s networks, her style, her power and influence gave the cause credibility’. Without being drawn on whether Sue has detractors, Gillon says, ‘She’s almost single-minded, which is part and parcel of people who are relentless about getting stuff done. Getting people’s noses out of joint is a by-product of getting things done … She is perceived as a threat by some. Sue is regarded as someone with conviction and commitment and her networks range from diabetes, football and senior philanthropic circles, all of whom can bring influence to bear’. Gillon then declares without hesitation, ‘Sue’s a strong woman who has complete passion about our game. She loves football. And she’s passionate about opportunities for women and women being involved’.
Colin explains that the basis for his wife’s strength is a core belief that was taught to her by the nuns at her secondary school: ‘What she’s talking about is less a formal religion than a way of life, very much the ethic of service, fairness and the notion that you can make a difference. When life’s unfair, Sue pretty much sets out to fix it’. He adds with a chuckle: ‘To the limit of her ability of course. Tilting at windmills is not a particular favourite of hers’.
There is a pattern that Colin has noticed. ‘When Sue is faced with a problem, she makes up her mind what outcome she’d like to see and goes through her list of contacts of people that can help … She joins the dots and it’s always a people solution. It’s ingrained in her.’ Colin says women’s football is a good example: ‘When Debbie Lee first got to know Sue at the Western Bulldogs, women’s football was about to collapse. Sue’s always been interested in helping young women. She’s always felt that women have had a harder row to hoe than they should have. In trying to get the answer, Sue put the people together who can help’.
Sue’s love for the game of football is not limited to assisting players, teams and her own club’s administration. She also supports the umpiring academy. It was through her father and brother that Sue learned to look at football through that lens, as both Jack and Richard Jenkings volunteered on the boundary and as goal umpires. Sue’s clipped words are simple fact: ‘No umpires, no football’.
Seeing the lack of respect given to umpires, and the barriers to their development, Sue took it upon herself to do something about it: ‘I want to give them a platform. You may not want to play the game itself, you may not be good enough to play football, but if you are fit, umpiring is a great way to be involved. Boy, they are fit!’ Sue confides that some AFL players openly admit that the umpires are sometimes fitter than they are. ‘You try running backwards!’ she challenges. Equally, the technical knowledge and adjudication skills required to oversee the game are complex and challenging.
Gillon McLachlan agrees that umpires deserve a higher status than they currently enjoy. He acknowledges that ‘We have cultural challenges across the community with umpiring’. Neville Nash, AFL Victoria’s umpiring development manager, and head of the Female Umpire Academy, is seeing a change in those attitudes and is committed to standards of excellence: ‘We talk about the one-percenters in umpiring, the little things that make a difference … A one-percenter could be when you blow the whistle for a ball-up. As soon as you blow the whistle you have to run, not stroll in. As soon as you blow the whistle for a free kick, use your voice and give the signal, not just one or the other. It’s about doing everything well’.
Neville first met Sue at a VWFL grand final function in 2013, where he explained how, for the previous five years, he’d been trying to promote umpiring to females and open a pathway to umpiring as a career: ‘We were trying to get the girls in the academy fast-tracked to umpire at a higher level and umpiring the men’s games. At that stage, there was no real vision for a women’s AFL competition. And we didn’t have many female umpires at all’. In 2014, Neville put forward a sponsorship proposal, which both he and Sue signed at their next meeting. Sue’s ongoing sponsorship of the Female Umpire Academy covers the cost of uniforms and equipment for the facility.
Neville believes that Sue, as one of the first female board members of the Western Bulldogs Football Club, has inspired other women: ‘Women have seen that they can be involved in the running of a football club’. Neville also says that while Sue didn’t have to get involved in women’s footy at the grassroots level, she did: ‘Women’s football in Victoria had been going for some time, but it was treading water a bit, run by volunteers. Once Sue got involved with the VWFL, the whole perception changed from “These bloody girls having a kick in the park” to such growth in such a short space of time, nationally. Sue had a role to play in that growth. She gave them a start to get more professional in the way they run the competition’.
Neville says that at the academy function each year, they give Sue something with an inscription: ‘This year we gave her a nice plaque. Before I’d even left the office, Elda [Basso] had put it up on the wall … Whatever it is we give her, she doesn’t just put it away in the cupboard’. Neville continues: ‘I think she’s very proud to be involved in our academy. We’re not talking about a huge amount of money, but it’s her support that helps us. We support her by going to her functions, and at every one of those functions, she will acknowledge the female umpiring academy. I don’t ask her to; she just does it. You feel that warmth and that passion about female participation. You could ask every player in Victoria and they’d say the same thing’.
Sue herself is modest about her approach: ‘I don’t need to go on about what’s holding women back. I’d rather just get on and do what I can to make a difference’.
In the men’s game, once the new millennium ticked over, Sue’s beloved Doggies continued to experience turbulence in their quest to improve their on-field performance, gaining a consistently average ranking in the AFL. But in the 2015 home-and-away season, they finished seventh, which in the space of a year represented a significant development in the club’s game-day results and stature—all of which flowed into membership. Front-and-centre positioning in the community was also reflected in a steady growth of leadership on the field. Sue was hopeful that her childhood dream of seeing her team break a premiership drought of more than six decades was edging closer.
Sue had long said she had three great wishes in life: ‘To find a cure for diabetes, for women’s football to be played at the same level as the men’s game, and seeing the Western Bulldogs win the grand final. That’s all. Then I’ll die happy’. (Sue only has a dim memory of the Bulldogs’ 1954 flag, a game she recalls listening to on the radio.) It was a well-rehearsed wish list, and many people had dismissed all three ambitions. But when it comes to her Bulldogs, if robust encouragement scored points, Sue would be top of the ladder. Seemingly incongruous up in the stands in her club jacket, with diamonds flashing on manicured fingers and those ever-present pearls, she whoops a call originally based on the Olympics refrain ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi, oi, oi!’ but which she’s now made her own: ‘Doggie, doggie, doggie, woof, woof, woof, doggie, woof!’ Yelled with a gusto normally associated with the cheer squad that stands behind the Bulldogs goals, this guttural cry has become part of Sue’s personality. ‘It’s what I do’, she grins. A football ground is certainly an appropriate place to unleash a war cry with impunity, and Sue never fails to let rip.
George Pappas, who has seen Sue across board tables, at formal functions and as a keynote speaker, smiles widely as he shares, ‘The footy is where the passion really comes out. Sue and her brother would be the loudest cheerers and supporters at Bulldogs games. Here’s this elegantly dressed woman, immaculately coiffed, screaming out “Doggie, doggie, doggie, woof, woof, woof, doggie, woof” every time they kick a goal. Sue can certainly let go when she wants to’.
Ros Casey, director of advancement at Victoria University, who has worked with Sue since 2008, remembers with wide eyes the first time she saw Sue in full flight at a Bulldogs game: ‘I had only ever seen Sue in a particular setting, in her role as chair of our university foundation. Yet there is this woman who everyone knows is extremely wealthy, who’s wearing pearls and diamonds, up there shouting just as loudly, if not more loudly, than anyone else. I nearly fell off my chair! But it’s not frowned upon. Instead, it’s perfectly natural in that footy context. Sue loves the Bulldogs, everybody knows that’.
Ros expounds on the way such enthusiastic support is accepted as part of the uniqueness of the national game: ‘The AFL audience is a very broad church. I myself have left a chamber orchestra concert and caught the tram to the football, and I certainly wasn’t the only person doing that’. She adds: ‘You can be beautifully dressed and elegant, you can be a model, or a businessperson, a surgeon … and you can still be as vociferous, rabid and loud as you like’.
If the Bulldogs win, then afterwards Sue may enjoy a beer with her nephew Andrew. Richard’s son laughs, ‘If we lose, Auntie is always very gracious’. As regular companions at the football, Richard says the pair share a cheeky sense of humour: ‘I’m able to wind her up. She loves hearing silly jokes or funny stories about what I’ve been up to. She pretends to be shocked but then she laughs’.
Sue says she is constantly looking for the lighter side of life: ‘I’m just a naturally giggly person. It’s part of who I am. I laugh a lot. I’m a happy soul, I’m not a serious type’. She also admits to a strong sense of the ridiculous, not missing a beat with the retort, ‘Barracking for the Bulldogs means you need a sense of the ridiculous’. Andrew roars with laughter about his choice of football team: ‘I had no choice! Auntie says she used to feed me pies and chips, anything I wanted, so that I would follow the Bulldogs. Collingwood was the powerhouse when I was young. At primary school, all my friends were Collingwood. So it took a lot of persuading!’
Andrew’s sisters, Kate and Lana, confirm the pressure from Sue and their father. Lana says: ‘Auntie Sue was hugely successful, together with my dad, at recruiting me and Andrew as Bulldogs supporters. Before we even headed inside the stadium, the bribes would start. We would stop to buy Bulldogs paraphernalia—scarf, badges, you name it. Once inside, the promise of a meat pie, hot chips, Shirley Temple drinks, was always there’. It comes as no surprise when Lana says, ‘Auntie Sue and Dad would not miss a game—rain, hail or shine. I remember when we’d wear green garbage bags with cut-outs for our heads during the pouring rain at Waverley Park’.
Having inherited his paternal grandfather’s genes, Andrew, a tenor baritone, is now a professional singer who has toured internationally as part of a trio called The Aussie Boys, and performed in major musicals such as Legally Blonde and The Producers. Back in the days when the Bulldogs were losing more games than they were winning, Andrew says he’d often sing at half-time: ‘I’d try and stand on the seat to sing “New York, New York” and Auntie would tell me to get down in case I fell off. Well, I fell off, didn’t I! I still remember that’.