Summary

Paper and collage banner made by Layla Murphy in support of her cousin Ruby Tripodi playing for North Melbourne AFLW against Carlton at Arden Street Oval North Melbourne on 10 September 2023. Layla Murphy plays Aussie Rules in mixed and girls' teams in Swan Hill, and aspires to one day emulate her cousin Ruby and play for the AFLW.

This collection also includes eleven digital photographs of Layla in her footy gear in Swan Hill and of the Murphy family at Arden Street Footy Ground where the banner was displayed.

Physical Description

White paper with words and images hand drawn with blue and black texta.

Significance

This item is part of a collection documenting the Australian Football League Women's competition, which was launched on 3 February 2017. This was an event of enormous historical significance - while women have been recorded as playing professional competition Australian Rules football since the early 20th century, and the AFL finally supported the introduction of two demonstration matches (Melbourne and Western Bulldogs) in 2015-16, the 2017 competition marked the first offically recognised and supported competition by the AFL. In 2023, the season commenced in September, with 14 rounds including ten home and away matches and four finals.

The Museum's AFLW collection is a work in progress, and includes: footy records (which ceased printed production in 2022), flyers, buttons, posters, cards, a Western Bulldogs guernsey signed by the Western Bulldogs team in 2017, and most recently, Pride and Indigenous Round guernseys worn by Richmond and Geelong Football Club (AFLW) players. The collection holds primarily generic material not tied to a particular personal story making this banner, images and story of a regionally-based supporter and aspiring AFLW player particularly significant.

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