The Myrtleford Hall of Fame member has hung up the boots after 23 seasons at the club and more than 30 in the sport.

In that time, Kelly, a Senior Constable with Victoria Police, won 13 senior women’s best and fairests and captained the side for 10 years.

When Kelly moved to Melbourne with the police force, she played at South Melbourne – which is now one of the biggest clubs outside the W-League.

She also spent a year at fellow AWFA club St Pats to play with a friend.

The 47-year-old took up the sport at 14, and, with no junior girls teams around at Myrtleford, was immediately thrown into the senior women’s side in 1986.

“Hopeless is probably being generous,” she laughed.

“That was the first year we had a women’s team at Myrtleford.

“We played in the seniors and none of us had ever played soccer before.

“We had to play senior ladies that whole time and we were 13 or 14 playing against girls that were a hell of a lot older than us because Myrtleford only had that one team.

“Nowadays, we generally have a seniors, reserves and an under-13 girls side and anything below that the girls can play with the boys.

“Myrtleford being a lot smaller makes it a lot harder, but we get girls from Bright, Mount Beauty, Beechworth and even Wangaratta that have come to Myrtleford.

“We’re always trying to get more girls, we do Miniroos and go into the schools to try and do programs.”

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Kelly had a number of representative honours along the way, including two years with ACT at the national championships, as well as several appearances for Victoria Country and the AWFA.

With her career taking priority, Kelly missed a handful of years after she suffered a knee injury playing basketball, but managed to get back on the pitch and play on.

She urges girls and women playing in the AWFA competition to continue to work hard in pursuit of their soccer dreams.

“There’s career paths now for girls in soccer, whereas back then there wasn’t,” she said.

“I represented Albury-Wodonga and back then the women were separate to the men and had their own organisation.

“Now it’s all amalgamated, I think it has been a godsend.

“We’re trying to get everyone on even ground and I think that was one thing that was really beneficial.

“I probably notice it more now women’s football is getting bigger that there’s a few girls going from soccer to footy to try it.

“Women’s soccer probably isn’t publicised as much, so I guess the thing to get out to young girls is you can play for your state, you can play for your country and you can also go overseas and get a contract.

“When I was playing, there was probably two girls that went on to play for Australia from here and one got a contract in Italy, but it wasn’t really heard of back then.

“It’s come a long way in that sense.

“If you’ve got dreams, work hard, follow them, listen to people who know better and you’ll get there if you’re good enough.

“One year I got picked in a national team, I didn’t step foot on the field for the whole week because it just wasn’t my time.

“Back then I didn’t understand, if you’re good enough to get picked, why aren’t you playing?

“The next year, I played every minute of every game.

“You’ve just got to be mature enough to bite your tongue and know your time will come.”

But maturity wasn’t something that happened overnight for Kelly.

“In my early days, I had a really bad temper on the soccer field,” she said.

“I’m the most placid person you’ll come across, but the other side of the field is a different story.

“I played with (Albury United star) Alicia Torcaso when she started and I was about the only person that could keep her in line.

“She could play and she probably could have gone onto places had she moved from Myrtleford.

“I always said to her that I see a lot of me in her and no-one ever pulled me up on my poor behaviour.

“I was never bad to my own teammates, but I couldn’t see it.

“I said to her ‘I’m not letting you make the same mistake’, and she actually listened to me.”

Kelly admits she’s blown away by the skill level of the current generation of players.

“We used to always just boot the ball forward and run, now the skill on some of the girls is unbelievable,” Kelly said.

“Myrtleford started a reserve ladies team a few years ago and it was basically a few older girls that didn’t want to play seniors anymore.

“Now reserves is seen more as a stepping stone to try and push into a senior team.”

This improvement has led to more support from the region’s clubs, who have put more value on their women’s teams.

“The men are always going to be the men, but we’re very well included at the club,” Kelly said.

“I know the year I had at St Pats was the same thing, they’re very inclusive of all the teams and very proud of each team.”

But she’d like to see more of an outlet for the experienced campaigners to continue their careers.

“One thing that needs to be worked on is introducing an over-35s women’s comp,” Kelly added.

“This year, I played in a reserves team at Myrtleford because we didn’t have a senior team.

“There was four or five like me that played soccer for ages and wanted to keep playing for a bit of fun, there was four or five senior players that wanted to be competitive, and there was another few playing soccer for the first time.

“I think they’re losing a lot of older, past players because there’s nowhere for us to go.

“Over-35s or even over-30s is something they could work on, I put that idea forward at the women in football forums recently.”

Kelly also spent a number of years coaching juniors in Roo Ball and Miniroos programs.

Myrtleford remains committed to unearthing new female talent.

The club is running a free Football Federation Victoria regional girls development program at Savoy Park on November 28, December 5 and December 12 for girls aged eight to 13.

Kelly hopes her journey can inspire the next generation to take up the sport.