West Australian footballer Mim Strom has staged a career-best campaign for Fremantle’s AFL Women’s side this year.

But, almost 1,300 kilometres to the north, the women of her remote home town are struggling to get a game.

“In the city, you wouldn’t have to travel multiple hours to play a game of footy … it’s really a whole weekend event when you’re in Exmouth,” local player Sophie Ayres said.

“We’re sharing the oval with the boys [and] finding people who want to commit to coaching all year round is a bit difficult.”

Ayres is the captain of the Exmouth E-gals, the sole senior women’s football team in a geographic area larger than Greece.

The tiny Gascoyne Football Association, to which Exmouth has belonged since 1993, was forced to cancel its women’s competition this year due to a lack of interest from the two other participating clubs.

Despite no formal games being played, more than a dozen Exmouth women kept training each week, eager to hone their skills.

Recently named All-Australian ruck, Strom says their commitment proves how special women’s football can be.

“It becomes that community and that friendship connection,” she said.

Long journey to the big league

Strom spent her early years in Exmouth before relocating to Perth to pursue her dream.

“Moving down to Perth, I saw all these women playing football, which was just incredible,” she recalled.

“I made so many friends through it, lifelong friends that I’ll always have.”

As well as being an AFLW record-breaker and Western Derby medallist, the 23-year-old is rumoured to have been the last baby born in Exmouth.

“Babies probably aren’t supposed to be born there and I was a bit early, so I was a bit of a surprise,” she said.

Children are only born at the local health service in emergency cases and, although Strom can neither “confirm or deny” her canonised status, the story has stoked the legend of Exmouth’s favourite daughter.

“It’s such a special place and a real community up there … [it] takes a village to raise a child,” she said.

Historic season

After being drafted by the Dockers in 2019, the ascendant star’s debut season was curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

That stretch of seven games, retrofitted as they were to accommodate the descending lockdown, saw Strom step up as Fremantle’s sole ruck while the team ran undefeated into the later-cancelled finals.

“I think my first season, it was kind of like … you’ve just got to make it hard for the other person [to] win the tap,” she said.

“It’s just taken year after year continuing to build my running capacity and my body work.”

She also credits her brother, South Fremantle tall Zac Strom, who was appointed ruck coach for the AFLW team prior to the 2024 season.

“I’ve had a lot of incredible coaches but they’ve all been quite tall and I’m probably still considered an undersized ruck [at 6’3],” Mim said.

“I know there’s a lot of taller and bigger bodies than me, so he’s brought that different perspective.”

Strom wasn’t expecting to leap into the history books this year: setting, equalling, and surpassing the most hit-outs in a single AFLW game (with a final tally of 56) on three respective occasions.

While Fremantle fell in the semi-finals to Adelaide, Strom’s blistering form culminated with an All-Australian honour on Monday at the AFLW Awards in Melbourne.

Inspiring a women’s footy desert

The Dockers’ purple army were not the only ones celebrating Strom’s breakout success.

“[Mim] is a pioneer of women’s footy for remote towns and it’s really showing all the girls here in Exmouth that there are opportunities to go play footy down south and further their career,” Ayres said.

“She’s been an amazing role model to watch and learn from and it shows that you really can make it even if you live in a remote area or live in Exmouth.”

The Exmouth E-gals have not given up on their hopes for regular football in the coming season.

Over the past year, players managed to field a handful of scratch matches with the local men’s side and against another women’s team, six hours’ drive away in Tom Price.

“[We’ll do] anything just to get the girls’ game up because they put so much time in and they are really committed,” she said.

“There is exceptional talent in our women’s team here and it would be great for the junior girls to see that they can keep playing footy.