History of girls and women's football in Queenstown, told by Vivian Rewi, who started playing football locally aged 5. Vivian has played football in Cambridge, England, and Bolivia. She is the most successful female player Queenstown has had, making the U16 New Zealand squad.

If you allow me to take you back 15 years, the local kids club had no more than 5 girls playing between all the ages groups and once you became to old to play in the junior football club us women had nothing to go on to.
In the past couple of years there have been attempts to create womens teams or even just a group of women to kick a ball around with once a week through newspaper adverts, word of mouth and even notice boards. I would never say that the attempts were failures as each year more women turned up to the 'meetings', which brings us to this year.
Darren Rewi was asked that if a group of girls could be formed if he could coach it, he agreed. This year the local womens soccer team was very lucky that Darren was commited to see a womens team form in this area, giving up 2 hours every monday night to train us.
This year we were lucky enough to have a group of about 6 commited girls who met together in January and held the team together as we had to watch as most the women who joined the team came and went as you would expect in this town. Darren also spent a lot of time contacting teams from Dunedin and Southland to find friendly games for us to play.
We did the hard yards having to play the first couple of games with no substitutes, until eventually mid-year Debbie put up her hand and offer to in-formally manage the team, she brought structure to the team, and helped to have forma very settled, commited, hard working and not to mention fun team of women.
At this time we felt it was appropriate to commit ourselves to our first tournament - the Southland Womens Knockout Tournament. We entered,we played hard, we had fun and we were aboslutly stoaked to also win that tournament.
This year the right amount of people were commited enough to make a womens team work in town and hopefully now after the success we had this year it will only get better.
Thanks everyone for your hard work!

Queenstown Rovers Football Club - Women’s Team, 2009 Managers Report.

Thanks to Vivian Rewi regaining her passion to play football, and deciding her father could coach a women’s team she advertised for interested women to start training together. . . . and the rest, as they say, is history.

The inaugural Women’s Football Team was formed.

Numbers fluctuated over the season, true to usual Queenstown form, work commitments and expiring work permits created a continuous rotation of players and caused some difficulties fielding teams early in the season. A total of 26 players were part of the team over the season, some just came for a few training seasons others stayed committed and formed the core of the team right from the start.

The first official game for the new team was against Southend, from Invercargill. It proved to be a nail biter, Queenstown were winning two, one, as the referee (Queenstown coach, Darren Rewi) allowed full time to slide into extra time. Finally, he placed the whistle to his lips to signal the end of play, then from nowhere a devastating kick from the Southend striker beat the Queenstown girls to the net and the game finished in a draw.

The next two games were played in Dunedin over Queens Birthday weekend. The long drive, a shortage of players and two games in close succession made it a difficult task for the 10 players. Although both games, against the Southland representative women’s team and Northern club side, were lost, they were by small margins and the girls had a great time.

To finish the season, and make all that hard training over the winter months when the Events Centre resembled an ice rink more than a football pitch – (the ball (and the girls) literally slid mercilessly for the hour and a half training for several weeks), it was decided to enter the Southland Women’s Knock Out Tournament. The start of this competition coincided with the arrival of the fabulous red kit from England – thanks to Neki Patel’s generous sponsorship. The girls looked stunning and the strip lifted their game, initially playing, and beating, Queenspark in Invercargill. The next game and semi-final was against Southen, and played here at the Events Centre in front of a supportive local crowd.

The final was against Riverton in front of a couple of hundred spectators, with support equally shared on the side lines. Riverton arrived on the pitch as the favoured team, however, Darren’s quiet confidence that his team could take top honours wasn’t in vein. After an energetic, fast paced game Queenstown left the pitch victorious, finishing their inaugural season with trophy in hand. GREAT RESULT !!

We had a request from the Southland under 18 rep team for a training game, they travelled to Queenstown to play, beating the local girls by three goals to two.

Queenspark choose to have their end of season ‘function’ here, including a game of football . . . . . the team arrived on the pitch in fancy dress, some more than slightly under the weather and the result of the shortened game was more like a rugby score - in our favour, but it was a fun way to signal the end to our season.

Off the pitch we have done some extensive fundraising to cover the costs of field time at the events centre, for travel to Invercargill and Dunedin, to purchase track suits and get our kit shipped out from England. We have raised over $5000, a huge effort, so thanks to everyone who pitched in and helped cooking sausages and selling scratchy boards.

This years end of season awards were presented to the following players :

Most Valuable Player : Vivian Rewi

Most Committed : Michelle Calwell

Players Choice : Alysha Maynard

Coaches Choice : Lea and Lou, our French duo, (who hitch hiked in all weathers to every training session !! )

Fair Play Award : Alysha Maynard

I would like to thank everyone for their commitment and enthusiasm over the year. Special thanks to Darren Rewi, dedicated coach and patient mentor for the women, always encouraging and supportive of his players. To Neki for his generous sponsorship of the strip, to Steve Henderson for supporting the concept of a women’s team and having the vision to build a new all inclusive club, to include junior players – exciting times are ahead. Mention must also go to the Mountain Scene for their trusts generous advertising grant (and another one has been given for the next quarter), and to Scoop for following our games, and always being keen to give us good media coverage, which drew new players throughout the season.

My greatest thanks go to the players – what an awesome squad, you have been a pleasure to work for. We will miss the players who have moved out of Queenstown since the season finished, Lea and Lori, and especially Vivian, the instigator, who is moving to Dunedin to study law – good luck with your studies but NOT when you’re on the pitch opposing us with your new club !!

We’re looking forward to the 2010 season, and our entry in the Southland Premier Women’s Senior Competition, with alternating home and away games, and welcome new players