Football Queensland (FQ) caught up with FQ Academy Sunshine Coast and Buderim Wanderers FC coach, Kirsty Stafford, on her recent C Diploma accreditation and her hopes to reengage a generation of former female players to step back out onto the field as coaches.
With football playing a key part in her youth, Stafford took the opportunity to come back to her roots when her children showed an interest, kick starting an aspiration to become a football coach.
“I sort of started getting into it as managing a team, I think a lot of women sort of get pigeonholed into that role,” Stafford said.
“It was probably only more recently, in the last couple of years that I thought, ok, I’m going to get myself organised, because I almost thought that in order to step in and be seen as the coach I had to get better, be more organised, prove that I knew what I was doing.”
Stafford attributes her start in community coaching to a Skills Training Certificate she attended run by FQ’s Club Development Ambassador on the Sunshine Coast, Scott Grimshaw; this gave her a clear understanding of how to frame football for her team and gave her the confidence to step up as a coach.
“We don’t see a lot of female coaches around, and certainly not within our club, and the Technical Director sort of went, hey, you’re actually kind of good with the kids, what about stepping up as coach and owning your own team,” Stafford said.
After her first year in the role, in self reflection, Stafford drew the conclusion that although they had had a great time and the team did show improvement over the season, if she really wanted to help develop her team’s skills, she had to further her own knowledge and pursue a C Diploma course.
“Just having this qualification gives me a little more authority for people to recognise that I am the coach, I’m no longer just teaching my football knowledge, I’m teaching it with a structure behind it,” Stafford said.
“I think the C Diploma course itself sort of allowed me to truly understand the core disciplines that Football Queensland was trying to get through to us; they had a really great way of individualising learning even though it was such a big group.”
On top of her coaching duties, Stafford has stepped in as the Women and Girls Ambassador for 2023 where she focuses on building two main things within Buderim Wanderers FC: community and mentality.
“We’ve done some integration at the junior level where we’ll teach our 16 and 14 year old girls a skill and they then will go teach the Under 11s for half an hour a week; it’s giving them coaching skills and also building their confidence in their own football skills,” Stafford said.
2023 is an exciting year for the women’s game, and with the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™ just under 40 days away, Stafford is a strong believer that the football community should take advantage of this excitement to reconnect with experienced women in the game.
“At a football level we sort of get thrown into the canteen or manage a team and that’s not going to draw more girls to the game, but I think what will draw more girls in is stepping out onto the pitch with a female referee, coming to a club with female coaches at trials; female coaches, they’re building the community,” Stafford said.
Many retired female footballers are no longer involved in the sport however it is Stafford’s hope to rekindle their passion and pass it on through coaching or mentorship to the next generation of footballers looking to follow in their footsteps.
“It’s such a great game for girls, it requires intelligence, vision, cognitive skills, physical skills, it’s got everything, and I think that we don’t showcase it enough, but this is our time to do it,” Stafford said.