A simple but effective approach has seen Hobart City FC achieve an impressive increase in female participation, rising 34% from 2024 to 2025.
Having been tasked with targeting more involvement from girls and women, the club’s junior/youth technical director Alby Hooper is quick to highlight the reason.
“We have to be welcoming to females when they turn up,” he said. “Typically they have different motivators to boys. Boys are happy when they play really well, girls play really well when they’re happy.”
An alternative explanation is provided by World Cup winner Diego Maradona in a quote on the club website: “When people succeed, it is because of hard work.”
The Sandy Bay club has dived into Football Tasmania’s Club Changer program which involved Hooper visiting local schools and encouraging young players to check them out.
“A lot of junior football happens in schools but when they get to Grade 6 it just ends all of a sudden. So I visited Grade 5-6s in the schools and told them about our club and what we’re doing," he said.
The result has been female players increasing from around 70 last year to more than 100.
“I think connecting those primary school kids with a club really helps to keep those numbers moving upwards,” Hooper added.
The club was founded in 1977 and named Azzurri to service the capital’s Italian community, changing its name to Hobart City four years later due to Soccer Australia’s directive that all ethnic-based club titles be removed. In 2021 the club merged with Beachside, which had formed as Howrah in 1975. It was rebranded to Hobart City FC two years later and is based at Sandown Park, neatly squeezed between Sandy Bay Road and the River Derwent.
Playing in all three Southern Championship competitions, the club has aspirations to progress into the NPL and Women’s Super League and is happy to compete with those clubs to attract future players.
“Typically people look for a nearby club,” Hooper said.
“A lot in the nearby schools just want to continue playing with their mates so we pick up a lot of those kids that have gone through school football and are now looking for a club at the end of it.
“Someone going to Hutchins, Fahan or Sandy Bay, Waimea Heights or Mt Nelson primary schools, we’re the nearby club, we’re just down the road and it makes sense for them to come to us.
“We wanted to try and get an equal 50-50 male-female split. Two of our nearby schools, Fahan and Mount Carmel, are both all-girl schools and girls that go there either play SATIS or not at all. So we’ve been developing good relations, trying to encourage them to come to their nearby club which is walking distance away. They can finish school and walk to us for training.”
The club is seeking to unearth more talent like goalkeeper Alex Cisak, who made his debut at 15 before signing for English Premier League champions Leicester City and going on to play more than 200 professional games and gracing the Socceroos.
Hooper highlighted the club’s enthusiastic, motivated volunteers for making it a desirable location for young players.
“People can see that we’re bending over backwards to make people welcome at the club and that’s showing through in our numbers,” he said.
“This new approach is to try and encourage kids to come into the club as juniors and travel all the way through because we have ambitions to be in the NPL and WSL and to do that we need to have a minimum of six home-grown players.
“I think Club Changer is a recognition of what you’re doing and is trying to steer clubs in the right direction. They want to reward clubs that are doing the right thing.”