For over 125 years, students at Meriden School have been making their mark on the global community through their academics. But now, they are extending their opportunities within their sporting program as they compete in the Kanga Cup for the very first time!

Meriden School is an all-girls private school located in Strathfield area of Sydney, New South Wales. The school believes that sport is an integral part of the student lifestyle. Whether it be at a high-performance level or a social inter-school carnival, the students at Meriden have a high participation rate all the way from their kindergarten aged students, through to their year twelve girls.

The Meriden School was drawn to the Kanga Cup this year as part of their plan to develop a specialised football program for their students. This year they were accompanied by Emanuel Fakiye, the school’s athletics coach and an elite triple-jump athlete himself, to coach them through the competition. Fakiye shared why they decided to make the journey to Canberra as a team for the first time:

“Meriden Sport is developing a football program for young girls, and we are trying to make sure that not only do they develop in the game knowledge, but also in the technical field,” Fakiye said. “This then allowed us to bring down our first ever Meriden team to this competition, which is very inspiring, the girls are loving it, and hopefully to develop them for their own private school system games.”

Being a school-based side, the Meriden team doesn’t quite operate with the same dynamic that some of the tournaments independent clubs do. The under 18’s Female Cup team features girls across a variety of different age groups and background experience in football.

“There is a different dynamic playing in the under 18’s division,” Fakiye shared. “We are as school team which means that all of our team are currently studying. Our eldest players are in year twelve and our youngest are in year eight.

“So, we have girls who are 14 playing in an under 18’s competition which means that they have to step up their game individually, but also step up their game with the team to not let them down and really build that team morale.

“From all of the girls that wanted to come down for this, this is their first time playing together as a team. Some of them are from the seniors first team, some are from the junior first team, and some of them this is their first-time playing soccer.”

When it came to discussing their highlights of their first time at the Kanga Cup, one thing that has stuck out to their coach was the girls ‘never give up’ attitude, and their results because of it.

“The highlight for me so far has been when we versed Woden Valley SC, where we came back from a 1-0 deficit,” he commented. “The girls really showed that we can play football and to never give up. Primarily, for the girls, its more social but they love scoring goals too. But socially they’re making friends with other teams and other players. Togetherness is a big one.”

Meriden’s overall goal in making the decision to play in the Kanga Cup was never necessarily to win, but more so to promote and share the love of football that their coach and officials have developed throughout their own lives.

“The overall goal for the week is to help them understand what soccer is like and to watch other teams play so they can understand the love for the game just as much as us coaches are down here to inspire them to do,” Fakiye shared.

As this team of young girls progresses through the competition, they are immersing themselves in the experience as much as they possibly can. With any luck, the Kanga Cup will see the return of Meriden School in the years to come, hopefully joined by another team or two as they get their developing football program up and running!

Words: Kate Reedy