MEET AUSTRALIA'S: WOMEN'S SOCCER TRAILBLAZERS

SUE AND PAT WERE PART OF THE TEAM THAT MADE SPORTS HISTORY IN 1975

- Emma Levett

Soccer was in Sue Larsen’s blood, but being a girl growing up in the 1960s, she didn’t have a team to play with. Then, she came across Pat O’Connor and her husband Joe, who had just established a women’s team in Sydney.

“I was 10 and I was so excited. I didn’t sleep all week before I went and tried out,” Sue remembers.

That youthful elation was nothing compared to the adrenaline Sue felt running through her veins just six years later, when she made the national team for the 1975 Women’s Asian Cup in Hong Kong. It was a world away from the games Sue and Pat played in Australia.

“When I scored the first goal against Thailand, how can you get more proud of anything than that?” recalls Pat, who was team captain.