Sharon Black’s Mum was in the stands of the Sydney Football Stadium to watch her daughter play for the Matlidas in the 2000 Olympic Games. She reflected on the times she and her Mum ate Two Minute Noodles to save money for her interstate carnivals.
There is one person who has been the standout support to Sharon Black as a person and as a football player.
Had it not been for that person, it is likely she may have chosen another sport.
As a five-year-old living across the road from a high school, Sharon used to hang around the field often enough to be finally invited to play with the boys.
However, with the family living in a newly created southern zone, it was decided by club management that a girl could not play in a boys’ team.
This is where her Mum took the first and most important step in steering her daughter’s future in football. Not to be deterred, Mrs Black took up the matter with the Anti-Discrimination Board which decided Sharon was “capable and there was no reason I couldn’t play.”
That was in the late 1970s.
By the time she was in high school and had made the State Schoolgirls team, Sharon remembers she and her Mum eating Two Minute Noodles to save money to fund her interstate travels for the national tournament.
As a forward and later a midfielder, Sharon Black played 61 internationals for the Matildas including the 1999 FIFA World Cup in the USA, then the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
Before that, though, in her early days of representing Australia, there were more sacrifices to be made to save for training camps and trips overseas. Funds were so short for the women’s game, the players had to return their green and gold jerseys to the Football Federation at the end of their national duty.
But the proudest moment came when her Mum, never having travelled interstate before, made her way to Sydney for the 2000 Games where her daughter played for the Matildas in front of a packed stadium – against the world powerhouse teams: Sweden, Germany and Brazil.
“We were both immensely proud of each other,” Sharon says now. “It was very satisfying for me to be able to give that back to Mum.”
It was to be a rich football journey. Sharon headed to Denmark club Fortuna Hjorring for several seasons where, playing against European players who play “quick, tough and are technically good”, she honed her game.
Sharon Black, who scored 20 career goals for Australia, and won the Julie Dolan Medal for the Best Player in the Women’s National League in 1998, was inducted into the SA Football Hall of Fame in 2012 as a Member for Outstanding Performance.
She was also named in Football Australia’s Matildas Team of the Decade in the 1990s.
Alongside her playing career, Sharon coached at club, state, specialist and schoolgirl levels, becoming an inspiration to players of all ages and abilities. Well into the 2020s, she remains deeply committed to the game, imparting her immense wisdom to players and coaches as coach at Flinders United Women’s FC.
