Sam Kerr thought soccer wasn’t for her. Lucky for us, she changed her mind

Sam Kerr was 11 when she came up from a footy tackle with a bloody nose and bruised face. She’d been playing against boys for years but they were growing so much faster than her. Her father and coach pulled her aside to break the news: she’d have to give up the sport she so loved. The boys were too big. It was too dangerous. There was no girls’ team, so no choice. Kerr remembers running home from the South Fremantle Football Club oval still carrying her bloodied tissues, crying hot tears of heartbreak and anger. When her best friend suggested she come along to his soccer practice, she scoffed: “What kind of game doesn’t let you use your hands? And soccer games have really low scores, too ... nah, soccer definitely isn’t for me.” The passage in her new book, The Flip Out, still draws a chuckle from Kerr as she talks to STM from London, where she is a superstar player for Chelsea in the FA Women’s Super League. It was only a month ago that she was in Tokyo, captaining the Matildas to a history-making fourth place finish at the Olympics. She’s won the Golden Boot six times, on three continents, for four teams, including Perth Glory, where she burst onto the scene at just 15. Turns out, Kerr laughs, she might have been wrong about the whole soccer thing. It’s not surprising that the requests for a Kerr autobiography have been streaming in for a while now. The tale of the back-flipping, straight-talking, prodigiously talented Aussie striker is a compelling one. But as her agent brought her proposal after proposal, Kerr would always demur. She might be one of the best soccer players in the world, but her feet are so firmly on the ground that she didn’t consider she’d done anything special enough to warrant a book. But after a couple of years, her agent was still pushing, so Kerr came back with a counteroffer. What about a book about her life, but for kids, showing them it is possible to overcome obstacles, to chase their passions and to embrace the things that make them unique? That, she could get behind. And so the Kicking Goals series, written with author and screenwriter Fiona Harris and pitched at children aged eight and over, was born. The first, The Flip Out, was released last week and the second, A New Knight, will be out in December, with four more to follow. For Kerr, it was a way to connect with young fans in the same way she knew the life stories of the AFL players she idolised as a girl. “I wanted to share my story, so kids realise that I was just like them,” Kerr says, pointing out that children’s books on female athletes are still rare. “I hope girls, especially, read it and know it is OK to want to be in sport and maybe not always be accepted or not always be doing the norm. That was really important for me. “When I was a young girl, I was playing in boys’ teams and I wasn’t always super accepted ... understanding that being different is OK is definitely the number one message I wanted to get across because I was so different as a kid.” The first book deals with Kerr’s discovery of soccer, her difficulty learning the rules and how she pretended to be a boy because she was scared she’d be left out if her new team knew the truth. It also touches on the love and support of her new sport from her AFL-mad family, the importance of friendship and perseverance, and how she dealt with the school bully. It’s funny, heartfelt and full of relatable lessons she learnt along the way. Kerr says the availability of different sports to girls and women is “like night and day” from when she was a kid and she knows there is a certain hero status attached to someone who has blazed such an important trail. But she’s not the least bit interested in being deified. “It’s different for everyone but for me, being a role model is making it, so that people feel like when they look at me, they almost can see themselves,” she says. “I don’t want to be this superhuman person. When kids say to me ‘I want to be like you’, I say ‘nah, you want to be yourself, be better than me’. “I love that kids look up to me but I also always think there’s no one in the world that I want to be other than me. I’m so happy being myself and being who I am. I think I find more comfort in that. And I hope that by the way I act on and off the field, that kids these days can feel confident to be who they are. “Athletes sometimes get put on a pedestal ... but at the end of the day, we have the same problems as everyone else, you know? I do the same things other people do every morning.” For Kerr, that morning routine involves getting up, making herself a coffee and video-calling her family in Perth before the time difference gets in the way. It’s been 18 long months since she’s been home and the distance is taking its toll. “Honestly, it’s been really difficult,” Kerr admits. “Probably the hardest thing about being away at the moment is there’s just such an uncertainty, especially around the borders. Like with WA, they’re talking about not opening up until April next year and for us, that seems crazy because life in London is back to normal. “I miss the weather, too. It’s such a hustle and bustle city over here in London. It’s dark and gloomy. I’m craving a Saturday morning or Sunday morning waking up, going to the beach, getting a coffee and sitting at a coffee shop for hours on end and relaxing, just watching the world go by. That home feeling, you know? I love that feeling. I miss that.” Asked who she admires most, Kerr nominates one of those closest to her heart, yet half a world away: her mother, Roxanne. “I don’t know how she deals with everything she deals with. The ups and downs of being a mum,” Kerr says. “She is so inspiring and she does so much for us kids. I just live in this little bubble of my own world but my mum has four people to worry about, plus her grandkids, and every day, like, I’m just like ‘Mum, how do you do it? You must literally be going nuts’. I have two things to do today and I get stressed, and then she’s got a million. She does so much for me.” The other hero foremost in her mind is Cathy Freeman, whose spine-tingling gold medal win at the Sydney 2000 Olympics stands as one of Australia’s most powerful sporting moments. Kerr was only in primary school at the time but Freeman has been an inspiration ever since, and that has only grown since Kerr also became a professional athlete. “You watch that race and it’s just like, ‘oh my God, that was amazing’, but now I understand more about the pressure she dealt with, the media she had to deal with. She pretty much had the weight of the country on her shoulders,” Kerr says. “I almost admire her more now because I can relate to that.” Kerr tries not to bow too much to that pressure but admits she does have to think twice before she speaks, which goes against her forthright nature: when the Matildas came from behind to beat Brazil in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Kerr famously told critics “we’re back, so suck on that one”, sparking a line of T-shirts. She’s also faced off with social media trolls, exposing a faceless account that targeted her with a homophobic slur, which sparked an investigation by Twitter. Kerr is open about her sexuality, sharing photographs on Instagram with girlfriend Kristie Mewis, an American soccer player. But being a high-profile proponent of the world game also has its rewards. For Kerr, the transformation of the Matildas into a beloved national team has been a highlight, as has the explosion of women’s sporting leagues. “We would have never sold out a crowd when I first started,” Kerr says. “I would walk down the street and people wouldn’t know the Matildas, wouldn’t know that there was even a women’s football team. Now the Matildas are one of the most talked about teams in Australia. “And it’s not just about the Matildas, it’s about the AFLW, the netball is killing it, the cricket is killing it, the rugby is up and running. I think that’s so amazing because there is opportunity and options. When I was a kid, I fell into soccer because there wasn’t a choice. Now, kids have the opportunity to do what they want, based on how they feel. Every major tournament we’ve been to, I felt like there’s been more of a buzz. Just the last few years, the change in women’s soccer has been unbelievable.” The recent fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics stirs complicated feelings for the ultra competitive Kerr. “It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster,” she admits. “Some days, I look back on it and think ‘wow, what an amazing experience, to be an Olympian and how well we did’. And then other times, I look back on it and think ‘dang, what an opportunity missed’ ... but at the end of the day, we left everything out there. There’s not one more thing that we could have done. And we fell short. But it’s really exciting for what we have to come ... you’ve got to look on the bright side.” For now, Kerr is concentrating on playing for Chelsea, for whom she scored 21 goals in 22 games in their winning 2020-21 season. She’s also keeping a weather eye on the next FIFA Women’s World Cup, being held in Australia and New Zealand in 2023, and the Asian Cup next year in India (Kerr, whose father was born there, has never been). “The World Cup is really important, so everything I’m doing for the next two years is about that ... that’s my main goal, to be in the best form of my life and be able to help the team as much as possible. But there’s a long way to go, so it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” And so it is that soccer, the game she almost didn’t even try, has turned out to be one of the loves of Kerr’s life. It is ironic that the limitations imposed on a sports-mad little girl ended up steering her into a future she could not have imagined. After all, if there had been an AFLW back then, “I would 100 per cent be playing there, there is no denying that”. But there is no going back. Asked if she would ever code hop, Kerr laughs. “I think it would be too big a call; the opportunities that soccer gives just outweighs anything that AFLW can offer at the moment,” she says. “It is a dream of mine to play for the (West Coast) Eagles but being on the world stage appeals to me more. But I mean, never say never. If my AFL career ever was to happen, it would have to be after my soccer career was over.” For now, she is grateful to that low-scoring, no-hands-allowed sport that she fell into. Because more than all the accolades, all the jubilant backflips and trophies and sponsorships and fans, it has given her a community. “Soccer has given me so many opportunities, to do so many amazing things, travel the world, meet so many people,” she says. “But it isn’t just about competing, and winning, it’s also about the experiences you have and the friends you make. That was an important part of the book, too. Sometimes in the world now, it can seem like it’s just about winning and what you can give to other people, but what you can really get from sport is my favourite thing about it.” Kicking Goals: The Flip Out, by Sam Kerr, and Fiona Harris, $14.99, Simon & Schuster, is out now

Sam Kerr thought soccer wasn’t for her. Lucky for us, she changed her mind

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