Northbridge FC are a household name at the Kanga Cup, having not only been a member of the competition since its early history, but now transitioned to becoming one of the sides in the tournament to bring the most teams, with an incredible 16 travelling down to Canberra in this year’s edition.
With close to 2000 players registered, the side based in the North Shore of Sydney represents one of the largest clubs in the Northern Sydney Football Association where they compete, with teams ranging from academy to community-level sides on offer.
Particularly from the academy level, where Coach Robert Hanimyan’s Under-14 Female Plate outfit compete in their league campaign, it’s a club that has a track record of developing players.
“This is academy, [we have] a good mix of players that are developing, a good mix of players that want to push towards the NPL, but [they’re] all very competitive, all focused, a great group of girls, good attitude,” Hanimyan said. “We are connected to Macarthur Bulls, so we actually do things where the players from the academies will train with the Macarthur Bulls on and off, as invited, and they are all eligible to trial for the Macarthur Bulls as well.”
So adept is Northbridge at developing players, particularly in the female side of the game, that they qualify for the NSFA Diamond League, intended for the sides most capable of facilitating high-quality environments for women and girls in the area.
“The clubs need to have specific structures to be eligible to submit a team in the Diamond League,” Hanimyan explained. “You need to have qualified coaches, minimum C-Licence, you need to have specific grounds available, so they actually take it quite seriously and it’s specifically designed for developing women’s football, which is amazing, genuinely really clever from the NSFA, they’ve had it for a long while now and I think it’s working wonders.”
In terms of the club’s main goals, Hanimyan says that maintaining an environment in which players continually decide to remain at the club for their development is the foundation of their ambitions.
“A lot of it is around community and making sure that we’re developing players, making sure that they learn to love the game, and most importantly they keep coming back each year,” the coach said. “I think that’s really the key, if you can develop players, fantastic, if they end up winning trophies, brilliant, but if they don’t come back the year after there’s no point, so they have to learn to love the game and actually want to be here, and I think we’ve got a really great group, they keep coming back so we’re doing something right.”
Participation in the Kanga Cup particularly for Northbridge, ties into this target to progress a positive culture at the club, with the Sydney-based side having held a place at the tournament since its early years.
“We’ve got a lot of teams here, it’s actually built into the academy program, we compete at both the Proctor Cup in Bathurst at the start of the year, and Kanga Cup,” Hanimyan said. “I think it’s a great week away for the girls too, just the social bond, how they actually interact, the quality of football, playing teams from at least all-around New South Wales is pretty good.”
With Hanimyan’s Under-14 side particularly, the coach is nothing but glowing about the team he is overseeing in the 2025 edition of the competition.
“I’ve been coaching for a very long time, probably longer than I want to admit, this is probably one of the best groups I’ve coached,” he said. “Technique is one thing, they’re all developing, I don’t look at that, what I look at is attitude, I look at how they show up each day, I look at the way they treat each other, they are genuinely an amazing group of young ladies, couldn’t ask for anything more.
“If you then look at the parents you understand why, they’re a good group of parents, they’re all very supportive, we don’t have anyone on the sidelines who needs to be spoken to ever, it’s just a good positive vibe in the group which I love.”
Words: Sam Watson
