Anyone whose kids play soccer knows that it’s a schlep.

Training thrice a week, games in god forsaken places that even your GPS objects to.

But that’s the beauty of football right? It’s a global game. A universal language. It’s a pathway to the world.

And the world is where we find ourselves this year.

Having made my name in AFL as Elle McFeast on the ABC’s trailblazing show Live & Sweaty, I, a Melbourne gal, found myself reconstituted in Sydney. Sydney is the heart of media and a Sydney boy had won my heart. There was, sadly, no Auskick in the early 2000s in Sydney when I got my act into gear to breed.

So when I saw Coach Stuart’s pamphlet stuck to the wall outside our childcare centre in Double Bay, offering soccer coaching to toddlers, me and my mummy friend Abigail jumped at the chance.

Weekly Che & Hudson would run around the majestic Lyne Park that overlooks the sea planes at Rose Bay, while we grew the rest of our children. Coach Stuart was a former Premier League player, a fact most impressive to the toddlers. But what dawned on me was the inescapable truth this game that offered connection to a bigger world.

Listen to the latest episode of the Red Card For Mummy podcast via the player below, or click here to listen on Spotify or here to listen on Apple Podcasts!

We progressed from Stuart to the Spanish coach Hector, who, with his fancy feet and late Puskas-style belly, had the then-4 year-olds doing sit ups on the beach at South Bondi.

It seems like only a heartbeat and a daughter later, that we found our selves back in Melbourne. Our daughter aged 2, still in nappies, was plonked in makeshift goals by her brother, who then took aim, before placing a bucket on her head and forcing her roll around on the back lawn. “The grass must be your friend”, she tells us he’d say, for hours on end. I must have missed all that while I was working.

That’s how I became a Soccer Mum, to both. And hours on the sidelines without a clue as to what was going on, led me to create Red Card For Mummy, a podcast for those curious to understand a game they had not grown up with.

I’m new to it. I’m always learning. You may be in the same boat.

Our son now plays with South Melbourne Hellas, and has had the fabulous adventure of playing in the very first OFC Pro League tournament in Melbourne, Auckland, Fiji, PNG and the Solomon Islands.

And our daughter?

Well, I made up Elle McFeast precisely because when I was a teen, the prevailing view was that women couldn’t play football. So it’s ironic that our daughter is now goalkeeper for the Junior Matildas.

Those McFeast soccer connections, fleeting as they may have been in the 90s, are now treasured escorts through an unfamiliar maze of opportunities, clubs, politics and personalities. Like, Big Personalities.

And all those July school holidays we never took, never having the chance to drag the kids to exotic locations lest we miss a damned soccer game?

Well, we’ve made an adjustment.

Rather than forgo our own lives completely, we follow the kids around, exploring the world through football.

We watch our children play in the world, and we get to play with them. Meeting new people, exploring new countries, learning new cultures.

It’s football diplomacy at its finest. And why this game is a bridge to the world.

So, why not join me on the podcast Red Card For Mummy as we forge pathways within Australia to this great game that ties us to the world.

It’s not such a schlep when you can see what’s possible.

Editor’s Note: Libbi sometimes still refers to football as “soccer”, but don’t hold it against her. We’re working on it.