Our Female Trainers thriving in the Football Environment
The Coburg Football Club doesn’t just keep ticking with its players and coaching staff running the show. Behind the scenes, there are so many staff at Piranha Park that continuously make the club what it is. Our medical staff, in particular our female trainers are the ones who continuously put in week in week out to ensure our players are well looked after on game day and training, especially with regards to hydration, strapping, injury treatment and management, and sports massage.
The 2016 season saw Briana Martin-Bashtannyk take over as the clubs Head Trainer. Having being involved with the club since 2013, Briana took over from the position from Rich Grant who took up a position with the AFL umpires. Briana’s involvement with football has come from beginning as an umpire in the EDFL junior competition and was umpiring senior football in 2009. She has also been involved in the co-ordination of many umpiring mentoring and coaching programs and has also acted as the secretary as the EDFL umpire’s association. Briana too initiated the Womens round all across the Essendon District Football League and introduced the position of female liaison officer.
While she is currently completing the final year of an Osteopathy Degree at RMIT following the completion of a Biomedical Science degree at La Trobe University, Briana this weekend has been chosen to work as one of the trainers in the State game this Sunday for Victoria, against South Australia.
Two other members of the Coburg FC medical staff who also perform as trainers are Alex Miriklis and Ricki-Lee Martinuzzo.
Prior to arriving to Coburg for 2014, Alex had spent the previous nine seasons with the Melbourne Football Club as a sports trainer where she was the second ever female sports trainer there. Undertaking the role as part of complementing her studies at university, Alex was out to prove that she belonged in the professional environment and gain everyone’s respect, from the CEO to the senior coach to the football department. Following that, she had very little issues belonging in a male dominant field, and would be at every interstate game for the Melbourne FC. Alex was offered a position as a trainer by General Manager Craig Lees, whom the pair had worked alongside each other for five seasons.
Still to this day, Alex has also began working with Eastern Football League side East Burwood, the same club where Lees played his junior football and coached back to back colt’s premierships. In her 8th season there, she does not only just perform her role as a trainer, however also as an injury and rehabilitation assistant. Having worked in football for eleven seasons, Alex is always striving for further improvement from other trainers she meets year to year, and is also willing to utilize her experiences for trainers only beginning their careers. Alex has also completed an undergraduate degree in Exercise & Sports Science at Deakin University and has a Graduate Diploma in Exercise Rehabilitation.
In only her second year out of secondary school, Ricki-Lee is currently studying Exercise & Sports Science at Geelongs Deakin University. Since she was 13 years old she was playing football, and currently plays for VFL Womens side VU Western Spurs and aspires to play in the in inaugural National competition in 2017. Ricki-Lee aims to have attained a position as a strength & conditioning coach in the future, and has already learnt from her experiences at the Coburg Football Club and the VU Western Spurs as a stepping stone to her career, especially with regards to the operations at the club as well to how those things can be perhaps implemented elsewhere.
Ricki-Lee also credits the likes of former club stalwarts Ben Clifton and Michael Hartley with regards to her advice on how to further improve her Football, as well as the clubs High Performance Department with regards to what players go through on and off the field. She also credits the Coburg Football Clubs professional standards as to why her knowledge has improved as a footballer and with regards to her exercise and sport science studies.
The rest of the females who make up the Coburg Football Club’s Medical staff are trainers Marlee Koopman, Annabelle Stray, Emily Hennessy, Alessia Ascenzo, Carly Atkins, Bonnie Tepe, Aimee Shearer, as well as Dietitian Vivian Tsang and Physiotherapist Laura Fazzari.
Involving women in key human resource positions at the Coburg Football Club is what makes our the diverse, family-orientated club what it is today, and the club are very lucky to have them on board.