Sport / Football
Don’t try telling these women they’re too old to start playing footy
Mudlarks plan to field women’s team in 2025
Mark Phillips
GROWING up in country Victoria in the 1990s, playing Australian Rules football was never an option for Peita Price.
It was only when her son began Auskick a decade ago that the opportunity came up to play a sport she’d always keenly followed.
Price has since embraced footy to such an extent that she is now the driving force of a new inner northern suburbs team for women aged over 35.
She is the interim coach and a foundation player in the Brunswick Mudlarks women’s team, an offshoot of the men’s club that has been around for 30 years.
The Mudlarks women are preparing for their debut season in 2025 and are on the scout for players ahead of pre-season training starting in December.
The team already has about 15 players, but needs at least 25 to be able to compete in the AFL Masters competition.
The impetus for the new Brunswick Mudlarks team is a gap in this area for older women wanting to play football.
“This is an opportunity to work with a fantastic club and men who are really invested and interested in women’s footy,” said Price. “We have an opportunity to build a team from the ground up in the way we want it to look and feel and have a culture we can set from the very beginning.”
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The President of the Brunswick Mudlarks, Anthony Peyton, welcomed the addition of women, which will mean the club fielding six teams in 2025.
“The Mudlarks are all about footy for fun,” Peyton said. “We also want to be as inclusive as possible and make everyone feel welcome.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Price.
“It’s about women over 35 who never had the opportunity to play footy and this is a brand new opportunity to have a go,” she said.
“It’s great exercise with a wonderful group of women doing things that make them feel good in a supportive environment.
“When you think about footy and AFLW you see them smashing into each other but the over 35s are not like that, it’s for women looking out for each other and an amazing opportunity to play footy with older women without injuring each other.
“I’ve played women’s seniors with 18-year-olds and that pretty physical and it’s hard work, but this is fun. No-one’s out to do damage.”
Price describes herself as a “crash and bash midfielder. I don’t have any particular skill set except getting the ball”.
Her own involvement in football came about when she stepped up to coach her son’s Auskick team.
Wanting to learn more about the game, she joined the Sunbury Lions in 2017, after she had turned 40.
After a single training session with Sunbury, Price was immediately hooked and found herself in the team squad the following Saturday. Barring injury, she will clock up her 100th game some time next year.
She has played with several other clubs since then, including winning the 2023 Best and Fairest at the Northside Lions based in Reservoir.
“I grew up in the country with five brothers and I never even thought it [playing Australian Rules] was an option, it was only netball that was available.
“I never realised what I was missing out on until I got a bit older and my son was playing Auskick.
“Then I went along to training [at Sunbury] because my friend played and because I was coaching Auskick and wanted to learn more about how to train kids, and at the end of training the coach said, ‘Are you good for Saturday?’
“And the rest is history. I just loved it.”
The Mudlarks women’s team is open to all comers, no experience needed. Some players have already been recruited out of an informal annual park match between parents from West Coburg and Pascoe Vale South primary schools.
Despite their name, the Mudlarks play their home games at McCallister Oval in Parkville, just over the border from Brunswick.
Their club rooms are in the Ryder Pavilion at Royal Park, which have had a $6 million redevelopment to include six gender-neutral, accessible change rooms for the 2025 season.
The next AFL Masters season begins in April 2025, with 10 games through the season played every fortnight. The women’s team will play Saturday games while the men play Sundays.
Prospective players are also welcome to join Price and other members of the men’s and women’s teams for a light run around Princes Park every Saturday morning, and the team will begin a “come and try” pre-season training session every Sunday between 3-4pm at Walker Oval in Parkville from December 1.
The women’s team also has an Instagram account.
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