Summary

Digital colour image of Layla Murphy seated on the Tyntynder Football Netball Club Oval, Swan Hill, Victoria, 26 March 2022. Layla is wearing her first pair of footy boots (pink) and her black and white striped Lake Boga Under 12s footbal guernsey. The photo was taken by her coach Stephen Davies.

Layla Murphy plays Aussie Rules in mixed and girls' teams in Swan Hill, and aspires to one day emulate her cousin Ruby Tripodi who plays for the North Melbourne AFLW club and play for the AFLW.

This is one of 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. The collection also includes a home-made banner made by Layla and used to support her cousin Ruby in the North Melbourne AFLW match against Carlton at Arden Street Oval North Melbourne on 10 September 2023.

Physical Description

Digital image

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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