Pioneer of women’s Australian Rules Football Jan Cooper OAM has once against made history in the league, becoming the first woman to be inducted into the WA Football Hall of Fame.
Unable to play football herself growing up due to women’s football competitions being non-existent, Cooper has dedicated over a decade of persistence and hard work to creating pathways for female footballers in Australia.
The Order of Australia recipient created the first ever Women’s International Cup and introduced Female National Exhibition games.
Cooper has been a catalyst for the AFLW competition, paving the way for the league’s inception in 2017.
An inspiration for female players, coaches, umpires and administrators, Cooper continues to fight for gender equality and diversity within the sport and has helped increase participation numbers by hundreds of thousands.
Cooper said she feels privileged to be recognised as a Hall of Fame inductee, and grateful to be able to celebrate it with her parents.
“I was extremely humbled, that was what I was employed to do, and I just felt like I’d done my job really well,” Cooper said.
“As it started to sink in, I felt really quite privileged and thrilled because my father is in the Hall of Fame and I though it was so great that he and mum were alive to celebrate the achievement as well.”
Cooper is the daughter of Swan Districts legend and fellow Hall of Famer John Cooper, and together, they become the first father-daughter inductees.
“To be the first father-daughter in the Hall of Fame is especially special for us all,” Cooper said.
Becoming the first women to be inducted into the WA Football Hall of Fame, Cooper gives credit to her colleagues and volunteers who have helped her along the journey.
“There are so many people who have stood shoulder to shoulder with me to get this work done, and a lot of them are volunteers,” Cooper said.
“I may be the face because that was my role, but there are loads of other people who, without their help and support, none of it would ever have transpired.”
Reflecting on the evolution of football pathways now available to female athletes, Cooper said there were lots of underlying tasks that had to be dealt with before she could help to develop the women’s competition.
“It’s astonishing really, things have changed so quickly,” Cooper said.
“In the early days, in the schoolboys and schoolgirls competition, when I first came on board, the schoolboys didn’t have to pay to have a team in the competition, but the schoolgirls did.
“So of course, there were a lot less schoolgirls teams than there were boys, and there was no reason, that’s just how they had always done it, so we got rid of that straight away.
“There were lots of little things like that that weren’t obvious, but they had to be dealt with first before we started to grow the numbers and participation and talent.”
Cooper said that despite how much women’s football has grown, there is still plenty of work to be done to take it to the next level.
“I think it’s amazing how hard the girls and the coaches work to improve the skill level,” Cooper said.
“The product they’re putting on the park at the moment is incredible, but there’s still room for improvement because they’re still not full-time athletes.
“Once they’re full-time I think it will grow even further skill-wise.
“I think the leadership in the code also needs to reflect the population and demographic of the community.
“There’s not enough women in senior executive roles, CEO roles, chairs or board members, so once that changes and it reflects our community, I think that will have another positive impact on both AFLW and AFL.”
