It wasn’t so much Australia captain Steph Catley’s spectacular second-half penalty against a scrappy Ireland side that roused Miley Shipp from the crevices of her living-room couch.
“Come on Matildas,” the 14-year-old muttered under her breath, as goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold saved a last-ditch effort — one of many chances Ireland had late on. Shipp lives 370 kilometers away from Stadium Australia, where the Thursday night match took place, in the city of Dubbo — but the way her eyes were fixed on the television, peeling them away only to fire off a text to her friends, she might as well have been among the throngs of adoring fans in Sydney on the opening night of the Women’s World Cup.
Shipp is a football fan. A football player. She is also indigenous; she and her mother belong to the Wiradjuri people, and her father is Wongaibon. There are only two indigenous players in the Matildas squad at this tournament (goalkeeper Lydia Williams and striker Kyah Simon). It’s no secret indigenous footballers are underrepresented at the highest levels of competition across Australia. Like most other formerly colonized and systemically oppressed groups, indigenous Australians are statistically more likely to drop out of school and experience poverty, and are incarcerated at…
