I may have been born and bred in Hampshire but this week I watched in awe as the Australian team navigated their way through a see-sawing penalty shoot-out against the French with the might and nerve of warriors.
In the instant Australian player Cortnee Vine stepped up to take the 10th penalty and sealed their victory to play in their first ever Women’s World Cup semi-final they shook off years of sexism and ridicule from what is often a macho-skewed sporting culture.
Grown men wept and screamed just as much as female fans whether at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium – or while watching on big screens in pubs and in homes around the country.
It’s a seismic shift from dismissal to respect, which is why the Matildas are being credited for changing the face of not only women’s football in Australia but Australian sport in its entirety.
I’d go further than that; this week the Matildas may have just made life brighter and more equal for women here as a whole.
It’s clear there is similar respect being shown to the Lionesses among fans in the UK, but Australia is so obsessed with sport that in my state of Victoria alone we are granted two public holidays for sporting events: the Melbourne Cup and the AFL Grand Final.
