In 2023, the WA Museum actively collected a uniform worn by West Coast Fever captain Courtney Bruce during the team’s 2022 Suncorp Super Netball Grand Final victory. That uniform is now on display in the Reflections Gallery of WA Museum Boola Bardip. The acquisition, while exciting, happened to also coincide with curators taking a closer look at the Museum’s sporting collection and the stories it was missing.
While many elite women’s sporting careers were represented, there was room to expand the collection to include more recent stories, including those that captured changes and challenges, particularly in Australian Rules football, cricket and basketball. With support from the Foundation for the WA Museum’s Minderoo-funded Discovery Endowment Fund, the Museum launched a pilot project to collect the experiences of women who fought hard to play the sports they love.
Over the past two years, WA Museum History curators Kylie Elston and Monika Durrer have interviewed 11 women (and 1 man), hearing about the victories and the barriers women faced during their careers. The stories they collected spanned elite and community sport, from the city to the country, and included players, coaches and administrators.
Interviewees shared memories of unequal funding, outright opposition and the challenge of balancing playing with managing a team, coaching, employment and daily living. They also reflected on the positives: The joy of playing, bonding with teammates and the strategic vision of the women who worked behind-the-scenes to drive change.
During this process, the Museum also received its first significant donations connected to the development of women’s Australian Rules football in the 1980s and 1990s. These include a bumper sticker, a State team jumper, a cap and an after-match shirt from interstate competitions. These objects begin to tell a story of women building a football culture, despite limited resources and public recognition.
The earliest of these items, a bumper sticker, was donated by Joanne Huggins who founded the West Australian Women’s Football League (WAWFL) in 1987. Joanne wanted to play football, so she placed an advertisement in the paper asking if other women were interested in forming a competition. She received 60 phone calls.
Training sessions began at Subiaco Oval and, before long, there were enough players to form 4 teams across Perth. The bumper sticker, with its playful wording, was one of the many ways women footballers tried to generate support for the new league.
A State Jumper and cap from the early years of national women’s football, donated by Danielle Fagents, shows how different the pathway to financing travel used to look. For the first two decades of the competition, women and girls representing WA paid their own way to national carnivals. Sponsorships, sometimes from controversial sources, went a long way to offsetting these costs.
If you look closely at these items, you will see logos from upmarket brothel Langtrees of Perth. For players like Jodie Nunn and Lynette Smith, who wore these pieces, the source of that sponsorship was less important than the chance to get to the Eastern States and compete.
Another donated item, an off-field team shirt worn by Danielle Fagents at the 2005 interstate carnival, shows how sponsorship had changed by the mid-2000s. This time, the team was sponsored by The Court winebar in Northbridge, reflecting the culture of women’s football as a welcoming space where lesbian players could be comfortable.
The WA Museum is now looking for similar objects that reflect the obstacles and challenges in women’s sport. These could include women’s uniforms that were designed for men, knee braces, letters of opposition or protest, fundraising material, training equipment or personal items that show what it took for women and girls to play.
If you believe you have a significant object that speaks to the history of women in sport in WA, please reach out via reception@museum.wa.gov.au
Want to learn more?
Hear more about the Women in Sport project at Playing with Passion: Breaking barriers in women’s sport on Thursday 25 June 2026, from 5pm.
Join WA Museum curators Kylie Elston and Monika Durrer as they share some of the stories they collected from women who challenged discrimination, found community and creative ways to play, and helped create opportunities for the next generation of girls in sport.
Header image: Photo by Ethan McIntosh
