IN MANY ways, Aliesha Newman is an accidental Melbourne player – but a very happy one.
A soccer player, Newman almost stumbled across the opportunity to play women’s football, as she explained.
“It’s actually a funny story. I saw the link on Facebook that Melbourne was holding a rookie trial and my friend that was with my actually goes for Melbourne, so we were like ‘oh yeah, let’s just go along just for a laugh’,” she told melbournefc.com.au.
“I actually don’t play football – I play soccer. I then went out and had a kick and the rest came from there.
“I was definitely not expecting anything like this at all. I literally went down for a little bit of fun and it’s all turned out like this.”
Newman, a small midfielder/forward, said she had to convince her Mum she was OK to play football as a junior.
“I played as a junior and all through my primary school and high school years and I played a handful of games a junior, but Mum always said I was a bit too small at 157cm,” she said.
“She steered clear of me playing footy and I did athletics for 13 years and now I moved on to soccer and I’ve played that for seven seasons now.
“I moved on from footy and I got asked to play in a team in grade six and Mum said I wasn’t doing it, because she didn’t want me to get squashed.”
Despite playing far more soccer than Australian football, Newman is a massive footy fan, having supported the Western Bulldogs and attending this year’s Grand Final.
“I’ve grown up as a footy supporter and I’ve never actually followed soccer – I’ve just played it,” she said.
“I know a lot about footy, but haven’t played a lot.”