It starts with the girls
Hills Ranger’s Tarryn Cuthbert speaks to Cam Palmer
On the surface, the Hills Rangers Football Club has one of the most unique stories in the Perth Football League. As one of the few clubs in the Perth Football League that have a standalone Women’s side, at first glance they appear a unique club with a unique situation.
But when you delve beyond the surface, you see a club that is just trying to do the same thing that every other footy club has done for 100 years. It is a club that is trying to give the youth of a community a pathway to a senior footy club.
It just so happens that most of the youth happen to be girls.
Speaking on the history and origin of the club, one of the founding members Tarryn Cuthbert spoke about the history of hills football’s fierce independency yet the need to have a club that would give players a chance to progress to senior female football.
“Up here in the hills we have an individual footy community, so the senior clubs are independent and the junior youth clubs are independent,” Cuthbert said.
“We had a whole heap of youth girls playing footy and we were looking at transitioning the youth girls into a senior team and because nothing aligned, we decided to create the senior club and that pathway.”
No club has embraced the female football revolution more than the Hills Rangers. Since founding as a junior club and developing a separate senior club, the club has a flourishing member base and a pathway from youth girls all the way through to a senior female side and women’s master’s side.
In terms of in the Perth Football League, Hills Rangers were one of the inaugural teams that was represented in 2018 and has remained with a Women’s team across all four seasons of the Perth Football League Women’s competitions.
“We’ve got a very tight knit community up here, a very supportive community,” Cuthbert said.
“That trickles through to the club and the amount of support that the kids get, not only from the club but from the community, it’s just an amazing place to be and amazing people.”
On field, the first two seasons were difficult for Hills Rangers as they could manage just three wins across the two years. However things turned in the COVID shortened 2020 season, as Hills Rangers won every game during the home and away season and started their first ever finals series with a win to progress to their first Grand Final. While that Grand Final would not go there way, dropping a tight decider, it was testament to the hardwork of many at the club to see success come to girls who had worked so hard for it.
As it stands in the Perth Football League’s centenary season, Hills Rangers are one of the minority clubs with a standalone Women’s side. Yet, the Hills Rangers junior club now fields a range of youth male sides, including Year 10 and Year 11/12 teams. Fast forward a few years and it could be that a Hills Rangers Colts and then senior male side will enter the Perth Football League.
For Hills Rangers through, whatever the future may hold, the unique history will always be that it started with the girls.