This cricket club has added a women's team, but without facilities for female players it's worried they'll leave

Australia Broadcast Center

11-05-2025

For many members of the Margate Cricket Club's first women's team, this is their first crack at playing the game.
"Everyone is obviously learning as we go, and we're having so much fun, we're not taking it too seriously," Lauren Tollard-Williams said.
The women's team has given Maddi Stanfield a chance to get off the sidelines.
"Just being around the club for the year or so beforehand and knowing they're going to have a women's team starting up … it was almost a no-brainer [to join]," Ms Stanfield said.
"I'm either going to go and watch the women's game or I'm going to go and play in the women's game.
"[I thought], 'let's give it a crack, nothing to lose'."
The club now has seven teams, up from five last year.
However, limited facilities at the southern Tasmanian club have made the rise in participation a challenge.
The club only has one change room for its 55 members — including more than 10 women — forcing members to change on the balcony, or at home before arriving at the club.
"Juniors don't have anywhere to get changed. Women don't have anywhere to get changed. It's just not suitable for what we need," Margate Cricket Club President Emerson Booth said.
"It's in dire need of an upgrade."
The women's team plays on gala days, where up to six teams use the club's facilities.
Ms Stanfield said it was "a general rule" that players "turn up in their cricket digs".
"If you're playing a game in 10 minutes you don't want to have to be in line [waiting for] the toilet to be free.
"So you turn up in your clothes or get dressed in the car and then pad up."
Mr Booth said he was concerned that without support to upgrade its facilities, the club risked losing players.
"Being our inaugural team, we're just worried that they go to opposition clubs [where] the facilities are way better.
Women's participation in team sport is increasing across the country.
"Over the last five to 10 years there's been a shift at a national and also worldwide level," Womensport & Recreation Tasmania president Jo Bailey said.
"That's been mirrored in Tasmania."
In 2024-25, 913 women and girls participated in cricket across the state, a number that has increased by 16 per cent from 2022-23.
According to a 2023 audit by Cricket Tasmania, 28 per cent of the state's cricket facilities were gender inclusive, 26 per cent were not, while the status of 46 per cent of facilities was unknown.
It was a similar story for AFL facilities.
A 2019 audit found just 25 per cent included female-friendly change rooms, while 75 per cent were assessed as being unsuitable for gender-neutral use.
Ms Bailey said inadequate facilities were a "major issue".
"We hear stories of girls having to get changed in the car because they don't want to go into a men's change room or a men's toilet," she said.
"It's an issue that is improving, but it's still there, and we've still got a way to go."
Ms Bailey said it was just one of many barriers to women's team sport participation in Australia, along with financial and self-confidence factors — the latter particularly among younger women.
Ms Stanfield said women's participation in sport was important to "emphasise and encourage".
The Tasmanian government has announced a Women and Girls in Sport Strategy, which is aimed at identifying and removing barriers to participation, such as unsuitable facilities.
Ms Bailey said the strategy was a 'fantastic step'.
"I think having that and encouraging people to [give] information and ideas and feedback in is a really strong step."
She said "empowering sporting organisations" with information and support would be key in encouraging more women and girls to participate.