MATILDAS MOMENT
MISSY Brayshaw’s decision to move halfway around the world to chase her footballing dream is a step closer to paying off.
A little over two years ago, the Gold Coast product and her family moved from Queensland to the Netherlands in the hopes of fasttracking her dream of representing Australia and just last week, the 12-year-old met with the Matildas.
After growing up playing against boys for Kingscliff and Bond University on the Coast, Brayshaw now finds herself donning Dutch colours as part of Feyenoord’s female football academy but it took a phone call by dad Andrew to get the centre midfielder on the Matildas’ radar.
“I found out that a physio on the Gold Coast called David Battersby was the physio for the Matildas,” he said.
“Dave was the physio of a few teams I played for while I was on the Coast.
“I hadn’t seen him for 20 years so I got in contact with him and said ‘I know with boys around the world, there is a system to keep tabs on them and see how they progress but how do girls get on the radar of the national team?’
“He said that ‘you can’t and it wasn’t like the boys so you’re fortunate that you happen to know me’.”
Battersby rang back the next day and invited Missy to meet with the Matildas prior to their World Cup warm-up match against the Netherlands.
“They said they wanted to ‘Matildarise’ her because they didn’t want her playing for the Dutch but I said there was no chance and it was her dream to be a Matilda,” Brayshaw said.