Almanac Book Review: ‘The Matilda Effect’ – Fiona Crawford (2025)

The Matilda Effect –Reviewed by Roy Hay

The FIFA Women’s World Cup will be the largest and most significant sporting event in Australia and New Zealand (Aotearoa) in 2023. Thirty-two teams from all around the world will descend on these countries in the next fortnight. Formed into eight groups of four, all will play at least three matches, with the top two teams in each proceeding to knock out matches to determine the world champion.

Australia’s Matildas have a tough qualifying group including Canada, the current Olympic champions, the Republic of Ireland and Nigeria. New Zealand’s opponents are not much less formidable being two of the top European teams Norway and Switzerland and the Philippines. The United States of America team is probably the favourite to win the competition, while European champion, England’s Lionesses, will be in the frame. From Asia, China, Japan and North Korea will challenge all of the above. These countries all have a long and substantial history in the game. Asian tournaments for women preceded and influenced FIFA’s belated recognition of the very different style of football that the women played.

Just in time for the tournament, Fiona Crawford has published The Matilda Effect, a history and analysis of the women’s game in this country. If you want a single book that will tell you the back story of women’s football, particularly in the period since the women’s national team began its rise to the top echelon of the game, then this is a brilliant introduction.

Fiona Crawford has already made a significant contribution to the story of women’s football in Australia via her joint authored book with Lee McGowan, Never Say Die: The Hundred-Year Overnight Success of Australian Women’s Football, New South Publishing, Sydney, 2019.

I have one major reservation. If a powerful part of the argument is that the story has not been told until now, it is important to be aware of the material that already exists. Readers seeking more information on the long evolution of women’s football in Australia should know of Andrew Howe and Greg Werner’s Encyclopaedia of Matildas, Fairplay Publishing, Balgowlah Heights, New South Wales, 2019; Greg Downes’ thesis and books; Dedicated Lives: Stories of the Pioneers of Women’s Football in Australia and The First Matildas: The 1975 Asian Ladies Championship, also from Fairplay, and Roy Hay and Bill Murray’s A History of Australian Football: A Game of Two Halves, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2016, which has a chapter on the history of the women’s game in Australia.

There is at least one other untold story, that of Trixie Tagg’s largely New South Wales based team that preceded the Matildas. She and they are still seeking recognition for their pioneering efforts.

Nevertheless, anyone seeking the back story of the women’s game in Australia to form a context for the tournament beginning at the end of this month will find The Matilda Effect an excellent introduction.

The Matilda Effectby Fiona Crawford can be purchased from her publisher Here.

More from Roy Hay can be read Here.

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