The LA Colosseum, home of the 1984 LA Olympics, is packed with 90 000 spectators, a record for women’s sport. Chastain does a maniacal run of celebration, whipping her playing shirt in circles around her head, as though attempting to lasso the moment for posterity. 

The images go global. Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter pronounces “the future of football is feminine”.

Blatter’s posturing aside, there can be no denying the astronomical growth of women’s participation in football. The nature of the game and its inherent accessibility to all types of people are key ingredients. The success of Australia’s national team, the Matildas, plays its part domestically. The increasing profile of the Westfield W-League will continue to celebrate the feats of young women’s feet. Roy Morgan Research reported in 2015 that soccer had overtaken netball for women participants.

Arguably the biggest driver has been the ‘soccer mums’, an election-campaign phrase coined by former US President Bill Clinton. The armada of mums ferrying kids to weekend soccer was determined to be a significant enough cohort to have its own label. 

That cohort exists in Australia too and perhaps the largest growth for women’s football is in the over 35’s category - mums who’ve swapped the Tarago people-movers for their own slice of the action.

According to Football Northern NSW, 21 per cent of all participants in the region are female, an increase of nine per cent since 2012. 

The same patterns are evident on the mid north coast, where 24 per cent of participants are female.

And to further boost things locally, Football Mid North Coast has announced a return to Friday Night Football for the upcoming women’s league. 

“This is very exciting, and a must for women’s football,” said an excited coach of the Green Point Rovers women’s team, Dave Schubert. 

Having won four of the last five competitions, Schubert’s team would have folded this season without Friday night football. 

“The league used to have 16 teams” he continued, “but the decision to move to the weekends saw that whittle down to just six teams. There were a range of factors, obviously, but Friday versus Saturday was a big one for us. Friday we’re in, Saturday we’re out!”

Wallamba FC President Dave Weller agreed.

“We weren’t planning on a fielding a women’s team, but when the bush telegraph kicked-in that there was a chance of Friday nights, we got a team together in a couple of days.”

One of the sticking points in the discussion has been the issue of ground availability and lighting, something confronting soccer in particular, because of the huge participation numbers, Australia wide.

“We have an opportunity to get more women playing sport and getting people involved in community. That is a good thing. The council has just upgraded the power to our ground, which is great, and we’d love to be able host games at Aub Ferris in Nabiac, although the lights need a bit more work”, said Weller.

And, serendipitously, Federal Health Minister Susan Ley has just announced a $10 million #girlsmakeyourmove campaign to increase female sport participation.

As the lights go on for Friday night football, women’s style, we’ll get some sort of sense of whether public authorities are prepared to give life to the rhetoric about community facilities and women’s sport.