Oral histories
The Flying Bats Women's Football Club celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015. During this year of celebration a small team of volunteers formed to unearth the history of the Club. With scant written records, it was a challenge to piece together the key parts of the Club's history.
Back row - Left to right - Trish Mc Cormick, Claudia Taranto, Anne Himmelreich, Alison Todd, Pauline Endersby. Front row - Left to right - Fran Krix, Tracey Atkinson, Tina King-Garde
Why is this history significant?
This is a community-led oral history project that will increase the visibility of the forgotten histories of lesbian and queer women and women in sports.
Both women's sports and the lives of LGBTQIA+ people are topics that require further investigation and incorporation into broader social narratives. The Flying Bats oral history interview collection will be a significant resource from which researchers and the community can learn about these often marginalised stories.
This project also offers the Club the opportunity to reflect on our history as both a long-running women's soccer club and a lesbian soccer club. It also promotes the Club's many achievements over the last 30 years.
By sharing our stories with a broad audience it is hoped that the project will foster an appreciation of diversity and the importance of community. The project aims to promote women in sport, counter homophobia and and inspire others to build inclusive spaces.
The Collection
To discover the Club's past, the project team recorded oral history interviews with past and current players, committee members and team managers as well as supporters. Interviews occurred across Sydney - from Marouba to the Inner West, and even as far as St Albans located about two hours north-west of Sydney near Wisemans Ferry. The team also gathered memorabilia, including photos, video footage, jerseys and trophies from throughout the Club's 30-year history.
The collection of oral history interviews, including the audio and transcripts, will be preserved in the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives based in Melbourne for future generations to reflect on and enjoy.
As part of the history project, the team conducted oral history interviews with 19 past and current members of the Flying Bats whose collective memory spanned the Club's entire 30 year history. The interview participants were asked about their early lives, their introduction to soccer and how they came to join the Flying Bats.
Through the interviews we learnt of Bats who had been Mardi Gras 78ers, one Bat who had gone on to become a well-known public figure, a refugee lawyer, a film maker, and stories of tireless community champions who gave their time to create a space where women, and particularly queer women, could belong and be empowered.
The team was also keen to share the history online as a web-based resource and digital archive. As you take a look back at the history captured in this resource, you will be able to play short audio clips from our interviewees. These have been extracted from the full interviews which range from one to several hours in length.
Interviewees
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Alison Todd & Tracey Atkinson
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Played in the founding team, c. 1986. Tracey and Alison are Mardi Gras 78ers.
"That’s what I kind of liked about – it was the team spirit; we’re the Bats – when we got our t-shirts on we’re all for one and one for all type thing. That was sort of the spirit back then" - Tracey
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Anne Himmelreich
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Played c. 1986
"I began playing soccer with the University of Sydney...and some women in there said 'hey, let's go and play with the Flying Bats - a lesbian team!"
"Whenever I had a new girlfriend I would always get them to play soccer straight away…"
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Sue Kerr
Interviewed by Sophie Partridge
Flying Bats Life Member, First formal President of the Club for around 10 years, played in the early teams and retired from the Club around 2000 - 2001.
"I never wanted to be president. That was never my intention. My intention was just to make the club run better so that we would still be able to play football and I loved playing football"
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Fran Krix & Ingrid Cullen
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Played c. 1986. Ingrid was the first official Flying Bats coach.
"It was just sort of amazing in those first few years how open and accepting and how diverse the whole team was" - Ingrid
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Tricia McCormick & Claudia Taranto
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Played c. 1987
"It was a shared accommodation…it was very much a Bats house" - Tricia
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Jane Castle
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Played c. 1987. Also played for the St Joan's team after her time with the Flying Bats.
"The rest of my life was so disciplined. It was a relief to just turn up...I could really relax with them...and just be me"
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Tina King-Garde
Interviewed by Anna Flynn
Flying Bats Life Member, Player 1995 - 2021
"I really felt that the Bats was one of the few clubs that was run for women by women. I wanted to continue to be part of that…I just wanted to be there. I’ve always enjoyed being part of the Bats."
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Julie Purser
Interviewed by Anna Flynn
Flying Bats Life Member, Past President, Player 1996 - 201?
"…it was much more of a family environment. You instantly became not just a football player but you became a part of a family I guess and a network."
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Georg Hibberd
Interviewed by Anna Flynn
Player and Coach 1995 - 2001
"It was more about being able to play soccer and be comfortable in an environment where I felt like I could be open. I don’t know why playing soccer like that felt important – but it did."
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Anna Flynn
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Flying Bats Life Member, Past Committee Member, Player and Coach 2002 - 202?
"I think it's gone from where, we're a group of lesbians that want to play soccer, to actually we're providing quite an important support resource to people"
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Danielle Warby
Interviewed by Shirleene Robinson
Flying Bats Life Member, Past President, Player 2003 - 201?
"I think for a sport like football it's definitely changing...When we play on Sundays out in North-West Women's in Gladesville area, there are girls out there playing football and it's basically just accepted as another [sport] - a sport that they can play."
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Ellen Scott
Interviewed by Shirleene Robinson)
Player and Coach 2004 - 201?
"...before I'd been 12 hours in Sydney, I was enrolled with the Flying Bats"
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Fiona Kavanagh
Interviewed by Shirleene Robinson
Current Player, Past Committee Member, Joined 2003.
"I enjoy the sense of community. I think most people join the Bats for that ... not just to play soccer, and I think that's where the Bats differs from other clubs"
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Caroline (CJ) Donovan
Interviewed by Kay Harrison
Past Committee Member, Player 2004-2018.
"So that was a revelation. It was finding my people. It was really nice. I've had some of the best fun over the ten years on the field of course, but also off the field."
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Sabs Cascio
Interviewed by Sarah Taylor
Player 2007 - 2016
"...it's a way of life really, a way to be"
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Kace Rich
Interviewed by Sarah Midgley
Flying Bats Life Member, Past President and Committee Member, Player 2009-201?
"I went to a training session and I haven’t looked back"
Acknowledgements and Thanks
The Flying Bats History Project team would like to extend a huge thank you to the oral history interview participants. Their willingness to share their stories has allowed us to document the history of the Club. Thanks also to those past and present Flying Bats members who donated photos and other memorabilia, including Julie Purser, Anna Flynn, Holly Brimble, Michelle Brown, Jane Castle, Claudia Taranto, Ingrid Cullen, Fran Krix, Tracey Atkinson and Alison Todd.
A special mention should be made of two significant past players: Annette Ussher (first formal Club Secretary) & Gayle Hannan (first formal Club Treasurer). Annette and Gayle are yet to be interviewed but, along with Sue Kerr, made a HUGE contribution to professionalising the Club over many critical years. Annette and Gayle are both Flying Bats Life Members. They were also made Life Members of the North-West Sydney Women's Football Association in 1998 and 2003, respectively, for which they have provided over 20 years of service as officer bearers.
The project was made possible through the support of Marrickville Council and ACON, who both provided a grant for the history project. We extend our gratitude to both organisations for their generous contribution to LGBTQIA+ history and the history of women's sports in Sydney.
We also acknowledge the significant role of the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives in preserving our oral history interviews for future generations to enjoy. Sydney's Pride History Group also provided support to the project.
The project would not have been realised without the dedication of the Flying Bats History Project oral history interviewers: Anna Flynn, Sarah Midgley, Shirleene Robinson, Sarah Taylor, Sophie Partridge and Kay Harrison.
A special thanks to Dr Shirleene Robinson from Macquarie University who provided oral history training to the team of interviewers and, with Sarah Midgley, prepared the content of this digital archive.
We would also like to thank the Flying Bats Committee for their ongoing support of this project, including Sophie Partridge who was president of the Club at the inception of the project and Jen Peden who assisted in promoting our history launch. Danielle Warby also provided valuable guidance at various points during the project and proposed the idea of a project to coincide with the 30-year anniversary of the Club.
While we endeavoured to capture a diverse collection of interviews, we are still interested in hearing from current and past players, past committee members or team managers, coaches and supporters who have not yet been interviewed.
Please contact us if you have a story to share.