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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Sport
Tory Shepherd

‘You were considered a circus freak’: the long road from the Flying Bats to the Matildas

Former Matilda Moya Dodd playing for Port Adelaide
Former Matildas vice captain Moya Dodd playing for Port Adelaide as a teenager. Photograph: Supplied/Moya Dodd

Women’s football has well and truly broken through to the mainstream but for decades the sport was sidelined in Australia, seen as a haven for “unconventional” women.

In the 80s and 90s teams such as the Adelaide Armpits – “a bunch of ratbag, lesbian feminists” known to many as the Hairy Armpits – and Sydney’s Flying Bats proudly flew the flag.

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