{"id":144941,"date":"2025-11-20T16:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/144941\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:07:13","slug":"matildas-mary-fowler-says-french-club-teammate-gave-her-bananas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/144941\/","title":{"rendered":"Matildas\u2019 Mary Fowler says French club teammate gave her bananas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FowlerFowler described feeling excluded and considered quitting football due to loneliness and alleged mistreatment. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cA few of the girls laughed about it and then one of the other players came over and handed my friend and me some bananas, saying, \u2018Here, have these.\u2019 That was the cherry on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fowler said she and Weerden had since discussed the alleged incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot receiving flowers was one thing, but as two of only six black girls in the squad, receiving bananas wasn\u2019t something I could laugh off and forget about.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it an accident? Was it the only thing in the dressing room she could give us? Did she mean well by it?\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve tried to justify it in many different ways, trying to find any indication that it was an honest mistake. But when I add in the many other times at the club when we were left feeling a similar way, it was hard to see it as merely a simple error.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fowler said she wished they had done something at the time \u201cto stand up for ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut instead we just sat there holding those bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fowler described a struggle with loneliness at Montpellier and said she \u201cgenuinely considered quitting football\u201d there.<\/p>\n

\"FowlerFowler also recounted inadequate medical care for chest pains, questioning the club’s treatment of her. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Matildas star recounted how the Australia team doctor had told her to get her heart checked out before playing again after she experienced chest pains when running.<\/p>\n

But she claimed the Montpellier doctor gave her a five-minute check-up and some anti-inflammatory tablets, and told her she was fine to keep playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t exactly the check-up I\u2019d been hoping for,\u201d she said, adding that a young physiotherapist at the club later told her that the coaching staff thought she was making up the pain to avoid playing.<\/p>\n

Fowler said more extensive heart checks had since concluded that the chest pain was most likely a muscular or skeletal issue.<\/p>\n

The Australian player said she and Weerden were also questioned by the coach for driving home together.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d answer that we were friends and I didn\u2019t have my driver\u2019s licence yet. Moments like these made it hard for us to not notice we were being treated differently to other players.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFP has contacted Montpellier for comment.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fowler described feeling excluded and considered quitting football due to loneliness and alleged mistreatment. Photo \/ Getty Images…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9526,85,64695,7022,2199,23552,18836,2688,90534,11775,6637,21932,1364,17774,7052,20696,94137,111,139,69,9617,312,213,97592,33345],"class_list":["post-144941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-another","tag-australia","tag-bananas","tag-black","tag-city","tag-claimed","tag-club","tag-farewell","tag-fowler","tag-french","tag-gave","tag-gift","tag-her","tag-manchester","tag-mary","tag-matildas","tag-montpellier","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-player","tag-says","tag-sports","tag-teammate","tag-winger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}