Prodigy in line to make history
TEENAGE prodigy and Cairns product Mary Fowler has hailed the influence of her family and junior coach Stacey Fittock as she embarks on her World Cup journey with the Matildas.
Having pledged her allegiance to Australia over Ireland and Papua New Guinea, 16-year-old Fowler will become the youngest player to represent the Matildas at a World Cup if she gets game time in France next month.
“I did know in the back of my head one day that I was going to make it happen, but I wouldn’t have predicted that I would have been going to the World Cup right now,” attacker Fowler said.
“It’s just an amazing opportunity for me.”
Fowler, whose father Kevin is Irish and whose mother Nido is from PNG, left Cairns for Europe in 2015, the same year her older brother Quivi signed a professional deal with Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem.
The Fowler family have since returned to Australia and have settled in Sydney, where Mary plays for Bankstown City, and Quivi, an Irish youth international, plies his trade with the Sutherland Sharks.
But Mary hasn’t forgotten her Cairns roots in reflecting on her meteoric rise from junior footballer to World Cupbound Matilda.
“At Leichhardt (FC) I had Stacey Fittock as my coach – he was really good,” she said.
“I really enjoyed it there, I learnt stuff from him. But then I did a lot of training with my family every day, so having my dad and my older brother Quivi as my coaches too, (and) playing football with my family every day – that was the best part.
“Straight away when I started playing football, my No.1 idol was my brother Quivi. He’s the one who got me into football, and I look up to him.
“Having my brother next to me the whole time ... was the best ever. I had my role model with me the whole time.”
Fowler has already represented the Matildas in four friendly internationals but until she plays for Australia in a competitive match, she isn’t tied to her nation of birth.
There were fears she may have been lost to Australia last November when her father blocked her from playing for the Matildas against Chile after reportedly objecting to then coach Alen Stajcic’s comments about the family’s lifestyle. But she returned to the Matildas fold when Stajcic’s successor Ante Milicic picked her for last month’s friendly against the USA.