Sport
1 December, 2022
Harcourt’s Kathie Teasdale is appointed first female MCDFNL president after premiership success
The Maryborough Castlemaine District Football Netball League (MCDFNL) has broken new ground for the 2023 season, appointing Harcourt stalwart Kathie Teasdale as the first female president of the league in its history. Teasdale, who oversaw...

The Maryborough Castlemaine District Football Netball League (MCDFNL) has broken new ground for the 2023 season, appointing Harcourt stalwart Kathie Teasdale as the first female president of the league in its history.
Teasdale, who oversaw Harcourt’s 2022 premiership success in senior football, will take over from Stephen Broad, while she’ll also be joined by Talbot’s Dallas Byars as league vice-president, as well as new junior football development officer Dave Willis, while Katrina Turner will remain as netball president, and Samantha Chapman remaining as a league vice-president.
Having been around the league for 14 years, Teasdale’s initial thoughts weren’t centered around making history as the league’s first female president.
“I honestly didn’t think about being the first female president of the league when I was nominated. The first thought in my head was that it is a strong league and I want to build on that. It wasn’t until the next day when I got a call and was asked if I realised I was the first female league president, which surprised me,” she said,
“I’ve been around football for around 16 or 17 years, so I don’t really think about male or female, I just think about the position and whether I can do that job.”
Teasdale’s priority in the role is to ensure that no club is left behind in both the football and netball competitions, and will look to clubs to provide advice on what works well to take the league forward.
“The first thing I’d like to work on is ensuring clubs can come up with new ideas on how to get new volunteers and some help. I want to make things easier for the club. Volunteers are diminishing year-on-year, so it’s important to get the camaraderie or commitment from those people, so we need to find a way forward to do that. It’s one of the key issues. The league is strong, so we need to continue building on that,” she said.
“There’s a lot of things we are looking at based on the management of the clubs and the way that we handle meetings going forward to make it easier going forward and a lot more productive. I have full respect for everything that was done before me — I’m not someone who will come in and tear things apart, I look for improvements that can be made.
“Modern technology allows us to ask questions and get feedback a lot more easily than perhaps has been done in the past. I don’t want the clubs to feel like they are on their own, I want them to feel part of the league and to have people help them. To do that, we have to uncover all the issues they are having and work together to solve some of those problems.
“We already have one club put forward a few ideas for volunteers which we are getting out to everybody, to have that atmosphere of saying, ‘hey, this worked for us, do you want to try this’, so that people have more options going forward on what worked well for different clubs.”
Teasdale was also pleased about the shaping of the committee, which will take in new names alongside some experienced faces — something she believes will help the league going forward.
“We have new blood coming in alongside some experienced people still on the committee, which will be a good mix going forward. The ex-president, Stephen Broad, I’m sure will still be available to give us advice if we need it, as my history with the league only goes back about 12 or 13 years. I’ll be able to look at our past history to inform our future decisions as well,” she said.
Among other things, Teasdale will continue to investigate the possibility of adding to the league, not ruling out female football down the track, particularly given her experience with Harcourt’s partnership with the Mount Alexander Falcons.
“Female football has certainly been a discussion point in the past, and it continues to be something that we examine closely,” she said.