Way before the excitement of the first bounce of the ball, women are vitally involved. Mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters share their men with the game, while female support staff train the players and market the clubs. Women journalists write and talk about football, and countless numbers of women go to the football every week to cheer for their team through thick and thin. Football's Women takes a revealing, moving, sometimes humorous look at the women behind the players in Australian Rules football and the impact football has had on their lives. The women who support their loved ones on field, who work as football administrators and sports reporters, the unsung stalwarts who work and fight to keep local teams alive, all have their own football heroes on the field, but this book pays tribute to them as great heroes in their own right. The idea for this book was Kevin Sheedy's. The enduring Essendon coach - one of the great visionaries of the game - was first coached at primary school by a woman.