The 1991 OFC Women's Championship was the fourth OFC Women's Championship of

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...

(also known as the OFC Women's Nations Cup). It took place in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

from 19 to 25 May 1991. Only three teams participated in the tournament, and a total of six matches were played. This edition served as the OFC's qualifying tournament for the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup.

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

won the tournament for the second time after finishing first in the round robin (by goal difference) and qualified to the World Cup.

Background

After the 1989 edition of the tournament, the Oceania Women's Football Confederation (OWFC) decided to increase the length of matches from 70 to 80 minutes. The next tournament was provisionally awarded to Papua New Guinea and scheduled for 1992. In February 1990 FIFA had announced the Women's World Cup for November 1991 but still not confirmed the arrangements for qualification in the Oceania region. At an OWFC meeting in September 1990, the Australian delegation persuaded Papua New Guinea of "its financial interests" in allowing the Oceania tournament to be played in Australia in May 1991.

Review

Although Australia enjoyed home advantage with all six games played at Marconi Stadium, New Zealand were regarded as favourites since they had outperformed Australia at the previous edition of the tournament two years earlier. They also regarded their American-born

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

Leslie King as the best in the world. Australia's coach

Steve Darby Stephen David Darby (born 15 January 1955) is an English football coach and former player. He is well known throughout Asia as a pundit for ESPN Star Sports. Managerial career Bahrain Darby started his football manager career in 1978 wh ...

named key midfielder Julie Murray in the squad despite her suffering from the effects of glandular fever. While New Zealand arrived without injured duo Amanda Crawford and Vivienne Robertson. Owing to financial constraints, Darby was only able to bring his squad together four days before the competition started. A last-minute "financial gift" of A$5,000 from the Australian Soccer Federation (ASF) saved the players from having to pay A$350 each to cover costs, leading Darby to report a much happier camp: "It means morale has immediately been lifted, especially if the players know they don't have to go into debt to represent their country." New Zealand seized the initiative when they thrashed

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

16–0 in the tournament's opening fixture on Sunday 19 May 1991, then beat Australia 1–0 the following day.

Wendy Sharpe Wendy Sharpe (born 24 February 1960) is an Australian artist who lives and works in Sydney and Paris. She has had many solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, been awarded many national awards and artist residencies for her work, an ...

headed the winning goal on 66 minutes from Deborah Pullen's cross. On Tuesday 21 May Australia built an 8–0 half-time lead against Papua New Guinea, but tired in the second half and had to settle for a final score of 12–0. Following a rest day on Wednesday 22 May, New Zealand beat Papua New Guinea 11–0 on Thursday. On Friday 24 May Australia came back into contention by beating New Zealand 1–0. This time Moya Dodd headed the only goal, after eight minutes. The result meant Australia needed to beat Papua New Guinea by 16 goals in the final fixture, to edge above New Zealand on

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

. Despite six goals from Carol Vinson, Australia could only win 8–0. They finished in second place to New Zealand, who took the single Oceania qualifying place for the

1991 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup was the first FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national football teams. It took place in Guangdong, China from 16 to 30 November 1991. FIFA, football's international governing body sele ...

. After the match Steve Darby resigned and acknowledged the disappointment of his players: "They know that two years of their life has been thrown away. There is nothing I can say to make them feel any better about it." Julie Murray contemplated a return to semi-professional club soccer in Europe with

Fortuna Hjørring Fortuna Hjørring is a women's association football team from Hjørring, Denmark. The club was formed in 1966 and play in green and white. Their biggest achievement in European football was reaching the 2002–03 UEFA Women's Cup final where the ...

. She had rejected an offer to remain with Fortuna in 1991, to ensure her availability for Australia's World Cup qualifying campaign. Murray was dejected and felt that lack of preparation let the Australian team down: "One of the things that counted against us in Sydney was the lack of time we were able to spend together as a team. We were fit but we lacked match practice."

Teams

The following three teams participated in the tournament: * * *

Standings

Matches

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Awards

Statistics

Goalscorers

; 8 goals *

; 6 goals * Sunni Hughes * Carol Vinson ; 5 goals * Monique van de Elzen ; 3 goals * Wendi Henderson ; 2 goals * Julia Campbell * Angela Iannotta * Maureen Jacobson * Deborah Pullen * Sharon Wass ; 1 goal * Donna Baker * Traci Bartlett * Cinnamon Chaney * Michele Cox * Moya Dodd * Jo Fisher * Sonia Gegenhuber * Kim Nye * Anissa Tann * Lynne Warring ; Unknown goalscorers *: 1 additional goal

References

External links

OFC Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ofc

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

1991 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

Women's Championship The Women's Super League 2, also known as Barclays Women's Super League 2 for sponsorship reasons, is a professional football league in England, operated by WSL Football. It is the second-highest division of women's football in England. The div ...

1991 in New Zealand association football OFC Women's Championship May 1991 sports events in Australia Sport in Sydney