NAB AFLW Star Mia King Opens Up About Her Connection to Country

It didn’t take Mia King long to fall in love with footy, but little did she know, the sport would change the course of her life, and help the North Melbourne AFLW player reconnect with her culture and identity.

Born in Tasmania, the former gymnastics student didn’t find football until her teens, when a high school PE teacher encouraged her to play her first game of school footy.

“It wasn’t something I had ever considered, there wasn’t really a pathway for young girls in Tassie. There wasn’t a [state league] competition or Auskick… so I jumped at the idea,” King said.

“Me and my friends, we headed down one day after school and mucked around with the footy, but prior to that I hadn’t really grown up watching a lot of AFL — I didn’t even have a team. But after my first game, I was just in love with it.”

King credits football’s immediate appeal to the ‘freedom of the game’ and its stark difference to the often solo nature of gymnastics.

“Coming from such an individualised sport, I just loved the team environment and running out [onto the ground] with my mates… there is a bigger purpose than yourself and your individual performance; it’s what you can bring to the team.”

The young footballer couldn’t have picked a better time to get involved — the AFLW was about to kick off in a big way on the mainland.

After playing her junior footy with East Launceston and winning a flag as a rookie with the Launceston Football Club in the 2017 Tasmanian State League women’s competition, King continued her upward trajectory in the AFL’s youth talent pathway.

In her last year at high school — when King earned best and fairest honours as part of the Tasmanian Devils team in the then NAB League Girls competition — she also starred in the Eastern Allies U18 Squad at the National Youth Girls Championships and was named in the 2019 AFLW U18 All Australian team.

Her impact did not go unnoticed — King was the sole Tasmanian to be invited to the 2019 Draft Combine and was ultimately taken by North Melbourne at pick 49 in the subsequent AFLW Draft. North had strong links to the Tasmanian youth talent pathway and ahead of the Draft, King had spoken at length with Rhys Harwood, the Kangaroos List Manager.

Despite her confidence in the process, King still experienced all the nerves of Draft night and counts the moment when her name was called out as ‘an unreal experience, one of the happiest days of her life’.

“I was really lucky that I had a lot of great connections with North Melbourne,” King reflected.

“Having people like Nicole Bresnehan and Daria Bannister, my former teammate from Launnie Women’s, knowing that they were already there, I kind of knew where I wanted to go and [what] felt like home — which was at North.” 

But it wasn’t a straight shoot across the Strait to Melbourne to join her mates at the elite level. During the 2020 AFLW season, King recalls that North had two bases, one at Arden Street, the spiritual home of the Roos, and one in Hobart.

“I actually stayed in Tasmania for the first year I was drafted. I moved down to Hobart, not too far from home and I would train with the seven other Tassie girls,” she said.

Whilst it meant that King could play out her first games of AFLW with friends and family watching on, being away from the main group day-to-day provided some challenges when it came to building strength and connection with her new team.

“If I’m being honest, while it was great to play footy in my home state, it probably was a bit limiting that I wasn’t around the main training group to build those connections and soak up all the resources that are [now] around me at Arden Street,” King said

“It definitely had its pros and cons and I loved the idea, but the following year they scrapped that, and Darren Crocker came in — that’s when we decided we had to make the move to Melbourne.”

King counts that second year as her first proper year of AFLW, making the successful transition over to Arden Street with her fellow Tasmanian teammates. From the moment she arrived at the club, King felt at home, welcomed in by her new extended family of North Melbourne teammates and coaching staff.

That supportive club environment would also help King connect with another part of her identity; the midfielder is a Jawoyn woman, whose traditional lands are located northwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory. King’s grandmother was a member of the Stolen Generation, taken from her family home as a child. Her father was also forcibly adopted, creating two generations of disconnect from their culture and identity.

“Football has helped me a lot in regards to exploring and speaking about my identity,” King acknowledged.

“[It’s also] given me an opportunity to use my platform to educate people on what I have experienced, and share my story, which I think can be really powerful.”

King knows first-hand the importance of education, and recognises the significance of football and its media profile as a great opportunity to drive positive change. The North Melbourne Football Club have embraced this same opportunity, to help support their Indigenous players and staff.

“It’s been amazing, I couldn’t speak more highly of the club. We’ve got a Head of First Nations [role] in Lucy Amon this year and she’s absolutely incredible; just the work that she does with the Indigenous players and to have that mentor you can go to for support.”

The club also helped King to connect with Wemba Wemba, Gunditjmara, Ngadjonji and Taungurung artist Emma Bamblett, the designer behind several of the Kangaroo’s Indigenous guernseys. Last year, the two women worked together to create the 2023 AFLW Indigenous guernsey, one that holds particular significance to King.

Initially meeting in a coffee shop to discuss ideas for the design, King and Bamblett found they held many shared experiences. The design ‘Connecting Through Identity’ was inspired by the club’s Indigenous players; and recognises and represents the significant women in both of the women’s lives — including King’s Grandmother, honouring her strength and resilience.

“The whole theme behind the guernsey was connection. I think it’s really important, in a football club where we all come from different places and have different stories — we all come together in this one place and really unite. At Arden Street, we all come together, and we are all one, it’s a really strong connection piece,” King explained.

In Bamblett, King recognises a ‘mother figure’ and someone who can help her reconnect with her own identity.

‘It’s so nice to catch up and have a yarn with her. I feel like with the Stolen Generation, there was always a disconnect with my culture, so being able to have those really strong people around the club, to look up to; that has just helped me so much as a person,” King reflected.

“I feel like that connection has been brought back.”

King’s involvement extends beyond club initiatives like the guernsey design — in the offseason following her team’s loss in the 2023 AFLW Grand Final, she travelled with fellow Kangaroos Lulu Pullar and Zoe Savarirayanto Wadeye in the NT. The three players joined Savarirayan’s uncle and former Essendon footballer Shane Radbone , to assist with the remote Indigenous community’s footy carnival. King was quick to jump at the opportunity and says the the trip was ‘one of the best things’ that she has done.

“Zoe just reached out to me over summer, saying ‘my uncle is doing this trip up to Wadeye, would you want to go up and help run a footy carnival?’” King said.

“Immediately, there was no doubt, I knew that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, 100%.”

Once they were approved to work in the remote community, the teammates caught a charter flight to Darwin and travelled to Wadeye. King reflects on her first impressions — the community was ‘just amazing’, and ‘the people were so lovely’ — but also notes the power of media, to both shed light on stories and to highlight negative aspects.

“Before I went there, I looked at a lot of stories about Wadeye, and all of it spoke to danger and violence, and I thought this is going to be really full on,” King said.

She says the stories couldn’t have been further from her experience of the visit. King was welcomed into the community by Elders, who are working hard with local partners to change the perceptions of Wadeye, as well as improve facilities and opportunities within the community.

“It definitely was an amazing experience; I did two trips up there and we got two footy carnivals going. Just seeing the young girls playing footy — the talent up there is just absolutely extraordinary,” King reflected.

“If you want to go see fast, exciting footy, you’ve just got to head to the Northern Territory.”

Fans of North Melbourne’s brand of exciting footy won’t have to look as far as the Top End in 2024, with the team keen to make amends for their short fallings at the close of the 2023 AFLW Season. King, in particular, is focused on moving forward and really putting in the work for the games ahead.

“The girls are looking really, really strong. Everyone came back on day-dot of preseason, the fittest they have been, PBs all across the board,” King said.

With new additions like former Melbourne lock-down defender Libby Birch, along with the retention of much of their core playing list, King acknowledges that the talented group will make for tough team selections.

“When you get to a point where you think ‘wow who is going to get picked?’ you know you’ve got a really strong team ready for the season. It’s really exciting,” King mused.

Like the themes in her Indigenous guernsey, the young on-baller is fuelled by the connection that her team brings.

“It’s what I’ve always loved — it’s relationships and connection — being able to work with like-minded people who are working towards a common goal. I guess the big picture is to get North Melbourne AFLW’s first piece of silverware, but that will take care of itself when it does,” King explained.

‘But to be able to, day-in-day-out, head into the club with an awesome group of girls and staff, I’m just really privileged and lucky to be in this position.”