This year Rebecca Goddard was awarded an ACTWAFL Life membership. Bec is the fourth member to be inducted into the ACTWAFL Life members. The following information provides some examples of Bec accomplishments and identifies why Bec has been so rightly awarded this.
If you’re female and have played football in Canberra then you would know or at least heard of Rebecca Goddard. No single person has been involved with the ACT Women’s AFL more or volunteered more of their time to women’s football in Canberra than Bec, and her long list of achievements are proof of her love of and commitment to the game of AFL.
Bec began her playing career for the Belconnen Football Club in back 1999, becoming captain of the women’s team in 2001. In 2002 she joined the Eastlake Women’s team and enjoyed premiership success in both 2002 and 2003. Work then took her to the home of AFL, Melbourne, where she continued playing footy for the successful Melbourne University Club from 2003 to 2005. Bec then returned to Canberra in 2006 and has continued playing football since. She is currently the Captain/Coach of the Gungahlin Jets Women’s team, has played over 160 games between the ACTWAFL, and the Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL), and has represented the ACT at four National Championships.
In addition to playing, Bec made every effort to give back to the Leagues by volunteering an enormous amount of time and energy to the respective committees she played under. In Canberra, she has taken on various roles from 2001-2003 and 2005-2008 including Treasurer, Vice President and Director of Media/Website. These have been critical roles which have seen the ACTWAFL develop from a 9 a side, half field, four-team competition into the high quality, nationally respected, eight-team competition now administered by AFL Canberra. To give details about the difficulties faced and successfully overcome to achieve this would take forever, but needless to say it wasn’t easy. In Melbourne, Bec was volunteering her time within a year of moving there, becoming the Director of Public Affairs for the Melbourne University Women’s Football Club Committee in 2004. She was also a Selector for the VWFL Country/Metro teams that year and was the Director of Media for the VWFL in 2005. Bec has also volunteered her time and skills to the ACTWAFL as the MC at the ACTWAFL Presentation night in both 2006 and 2007, was the head of the organising committee for the ACTWAFL 10-year Anniversary Gala Dinner in 2007, and was a Selector for the ACT Representative Team this year.
Bec’s passion for AFL doesn’t end there as she is also a distinguished umpire of Women’s Football. Beginning in the ACTWAFL in 2002 and 2003, Bec continued to umpire in Melbourne from 2004-2006 including Youth Girls Victoria, the VIC Country v VIC Metro game at the MCG in 2004, and the VWFL Grand Final in 2005. On returning to Canberra Bec became the ACTWAFL Youth Girls umpire in 2008. Bec has also umpired at the last four Women’s AFL National Championships and umpired the Grand Final game on each occasion. It should be noted that as a volunteer, Bec had a thorough understanding of the financial difficulties that were often faced by the Women’s Leagues and therefore refused all umpiring payments, insisting that her fees be donated back into the respective Leagues.
Bec has also been successful in umpiring Men’s AFL and to date has umpired over 100 AFL Canberra matches either as a field, boundary or goal umpire since 1999. She has also field umpired 7 Essendon District Football League games and 32 Western Region Football League games. I would imagine Bec has received remuneration for some or all of these men’s games so they can’t be classed as voluntary acts, however it is important to note that her dedication to the game has seen her become the first female ever (ie anywhere in Australia) to umpire AFL in the field at the highest level (state league), a goal she proudly achieved in July this year.
If the above information is not enough, one of Bec’s most credible voluntary contributions to AFL (namely women’s AFL) was her unselfish or sacrificial act of forming the Gungahlin Women’s Football team. At a time when the ACTWAFL was desperate to expand to an eight team competition, last year Bec made the brave decision to leave the most successful club in the history of the League (Eastlake) to take on yet another football role, coaching. Not only is Bec the founder, but she is the current Captain/Coach of the first ever Gungahlin Women’s Football team, and has subsequently promoted and expanded the game to the women of the far Northern suburbs of Canberra. The Jets did extremely well in their first season, finishing runners up in the Division 2 Grand final last year.
Bec admits herself that for perhaps nine or ten months of the year (that’s each year since 1999), she eats, sleeps and breathes footy, and just last week she mentioned she may even take some leave from work and apply to umpire in Darwin for three months before Christmas. It’s the passion and dedication of people such as Bec Goddard who should be recognised and thanked every day.
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