A tale of seven cities and one beach: How Mary Fowler got to the World Cup stage
By Greg Baum
Mary Fowler says the best advice she has ever received was: “Wherever you are, start there.”
She knows it’s enigmatic. She says her brother mocks it. She takes it to mean that the scope of her ambition in an endeavour should not be determined by someone else’s expectation, but by her own awareness of her capabilities on any given day and in the face of any given challenge. For her, that might be painting, a poem or a soccer match.
Mary Fowler’s star has risen during this World Cup.Credit: AP
“Wherever you are, start there” might also act as a five-word abstract of Fowler’s singular life and times.
Where she’s starting now is at the top of the midfield for the Matildas in a World Cup campaign that has captured the nation’s heart, dazzling all with her skill, poise and vision, proxying for Sam Kerr both as inspiration and taliswoman. It ought to be - but evidently is not - a giddying place for a woman who was the youngest player in the Matildas squad at the last World Cup and still is this time. She’s just 20 and doesn’t she look it?
But by the end of this tournament, Fowler will have played more matches for the Matildas than for any one club.
Soccer is a highly systematic sport, on and off the pitch. Fowler came from the outside. She did not play for Australia at youth level, nor was she enrolled in an academy. That should not be read as a repudiation of the system, but rather as a celebration of her and her family. If she stays the course, hers and their story will become part of Australian sporting lore and legend.
It begins with her father, Kevin, an adventuresome Irishman who ran well enough to win a scholarship to an American university, who while working on an aid program in Mt Hagen, New Guinea, met and married Nido, a national. They lived in Ireland and briefly the Netherlands and while Mary, the third of their five children, was in utero were driving up Australia’s east coast in a Landcruiser, trying to settle on a place to call home.
Cairns it was. There, they became colloquially famous as the Fowler Five, eating dinner and staging their own Olympics with all the trappings on Trinity Beach every night; Kevin wouldn’t have a TV in the house. As oldest son Quivi said, throw in a parent and they always had a 3 on 3.
Eldest pair Quivi and Ciara excelled at soccer, both in time playing for Ireland youth teams, though sustained professional careers have eluded them (Quivi occupies himself sometimes now shooting artful videos of Mary, which foreshadowed a recent documentary). Mary, though, was something else. One junior coach in Cairns dines out on a story about how a rival tried to have her barred from a match against opponents two years older. They were boys.
The Fowlers decided to pursue their children’s dreams as a collective, moving to the Netherlands for three years, sometimes living in tents and their car, dubbed Hotel Tarago. Fowler speaks fluent Dutch.
Fowler will soon have played more matches for the Matildas than for any one club.Credit: Getty Images
Upon returning to Australia, Ciara and Mary led Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts to a title; proof positive that soccer is a performing art. But for Mary, it’s only one: she also dabbles competently in painting, sculpture and poetry, and imagines herself in an alternative universe as a zoologist. She says the poetry is cathartic; once out, deep thoughts no longer weigh. Asked once to sum herself up in one word, she chose “creative”.
At some point, Ireland courted Mary for their youth team. She thought about it for her siblings’ sake, but knew Australia was home. Just to be sure, then coach Alen Stajcic picked her for the Matildas at 15. At the time, she said her aim was to be the world’s best footballer. Recently, she modified this to say she wanted to be the best footballer and person she could be. They’re not so far apart anyway.
In 2021, Fowler scored twice for the Matildas against Ireland in Dublin and at match’s end gave her guernsey to her grandfather, also Kevin, who lives there still. Ireland won anyway, so he had the best of all hemispheres.
Fowler and Sam Kerr together in the win against Denmark.Credit: Reuters
Ciara and Mary made their professional debuts together for an enterprising Adelaide United in 2019, but half a season later Mary, just 17, was off to Montpellier in France on a three-year contract. A year ago, Manchester City swooped.
In Europe, Fowler’s football has blossomed, her international career has consolidated and her fame has grown. “I love playing football in Europe - the style suits me a lot more,” she told Manchester City’s website.
But it has not been without privations. When COVID struck, Fowler was isolated in France, denied both football and proximity to her close-knit family. She was away from home for three years. It hurt, but she said she thought of school friends losing even part-time jobs and put her self-pity aside.
If Fowler had tickets on herself, they’d be plentiful. “Most weapons seen in a young player.” “Best two-footed player in the team.” “The next Sam Kerr.” Kerr herself subscribes to this.
But the epithet most often heard is “mature”, applying both to her character and football. A beat journalist says she’s the oldest 20-year-old he’s met. In her short, but peripatetic life - she’s counted seven cities as home - she’s thought a lot.
Fowler beats Lucy Bronze to score against Great Britain at the Olympics.Credit: AP
“The hardest thing in life is to be yourself,” she says on one of her brother’s videos. “I think the most important journey anyone can take in life is the journey of self-awareness.”
One of her models is gymnast Simone Biles, a superstar, a competitor, but with enough perspective to know when to hit pause. That’s where she was, and where she’s just started again.
None of this precocity would be of any account if not for Fowler’s gift for football. It’s clear even to the untutored eye. She’s skilful on both sides, deceptively strong, belying her waifish appearance, and unhurried to an almost un-Australian degree. Playing in what soccer people call a “false 9”, she can hold the ball up as the counter-attacking Matildas come rushing out defence or range forward to make and score goals.
Mary Fowler’s pass to Caitlin Foord.Credit: Channel Seven
Like greats in any sport, she sees the future seconds before it arrives. When she hit that pass to Caitlin Foord on Monday night, even the pets in front of the TV swooned. She’d given Foord enough room and time to stop, blow a kiss and shake her hand before she went on to score.
Fowler has not replaced Kerr - they are very different players - but she’s been an able surrogate. Henceforth, hopefully, Australia gets to have its cake and eat it, too.
Pause. Tickets, please. Fowler won’t get ahead of herself, so we mustn’t get ahead of her. She’s 20, remember, still only part-formed. All her 11 games for Manchester City this season were as a sub. She scored the go-ahead goal as Australia beat Great Britain at the Olympics in 2021, but later lost her place in the Matildas’ starting line-up.
Notably, she said she respected coach Tony Gustavsson for this. “I’m happy that I had that time (on the bench) because then you can’t get stuck thinking things will get given to you all the time,” she told KeepUp.
That pass which resulted in Australia’s first goal against Denmark.Credit: Getty
There’s that wise head, the one that drives those wise feet. In the Mary Fowler doco, she tells of a tactic she uses when, for instance, period pain is messing with her life and football. She pulls out a photo of her happy self that she made sure to take days beforehand.
“So not heaps has changed in two days,” she says, “and that would just make me see how real things are - the mind often makes you think about things in a certain way and it is often exaggerated.”
It’s where she is and where she starts. It’s also a life lesson for the nation on Saturday.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.