Margaret Roy
In an era where Women paved the way for those that followed, the late Margaret Roy is an icon of the game, achieving what few have in a glittering state representative career.
Born in 1953, Margaret Roy was a comparative veteran when she first put on a pair of boots. While the Victorian Women’s Soccer Association wasn’t officially formed until December 1973, Roy had already ventured onto suburban pitches with Doveton, one of the early Women’s teams that played regular practice matches in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Roy featured in a friendly against Bayswater at Olympic Park in June 1973 as a curtain raiser to the Victoria-Cruzeiro clash, a match which proved pivotal to the formation of the VWSA later that year.
While not selected in the inaugural Victorian squad in 1974, Roy featured at every National Championship for the remainder of the decade, representing her state with aplomb in the heart of the midfield. A move from Doveton to Waverley witnessed a level up in class as she counted fellow state players Karen Delves and Bev Hubbard as teammates. She played in Victoria’s runner-up teams of 1976 and 1979, New South Wales pipping them for the title on each occasion.
Along with Shona Bass and Janette Melvin, Roy was among the first to attend an all-female coaching course run by the legendary John Gardiner. She ultimately became one of the few women in Victoria to attain a Level Three Coaching qualification and was at the helm of the Victorian Under 15 team at the National Youth Championship in 1984, not to mention Head Coach of Waverley and Box Hill.
By 1987, Roy was set to embark upon her eighth National Championship in Alice Springs, and Victoria secured its first ever win at the fourteenth time of asking. Her tenth and final Championship two years later would reap another, as Victoria headed to the capital and took all before them seeing off all challengers, including South Queensland in a thrilling penalty shootout in the Final.
As one of only nine Women to have represented Victoria at ten or more National Championships in the AWSA era, Margaret Roy sits in esteemed company alongside some of the game’s pioneering greats.