First Football Ferns Fighting to Tell Their Story

While much has changed since New Zealand won the Women’s Asian Cup in 1975, their triumph remains largely unrecognised, Jeff Kassouf writes in a story published by The Guardian.

Isobel Kennedy can still remember arriving home in Auckland in 1975. She and her teammates had just won the first Women’s Asian Cup, and they were on top of the world.

Back home, they remained anonymous, Kassouf writes.

Now, with the current Football Ferns co-hosting the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and chasing a historic first knockout stage appearance, the “OGs” – slang for “originals,” but Kennedy jokes it means “old girls” – want to make sure history is recognised more prominently by New Zealand Football.

As history is written close to home, the remaining players from that 1975 team want to make sure the team’s full story is told. Marianne Poole, who became a teacher and then co-founded a gym in Palmerston North, asks: “If they don’t recognise us, how much have we progressed?”

Original article by Jeff Kassouf, The Guardian, July 29, 2023.