For the past 11 years, Ballarat schools have been donning the unusual combination of pink and footy boots – but all for a good cause.
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On Friday, Ballarat Clarendon College and Loreto College battled it out for the annual Players for Pink breast cancer awareness girls football match.
Supporters of both sides wore and waved all shades of pink – from fuschia to blush to rose – to help fund raise for breast cancer research and support.
The game, played in good old-fashioned winter mud and rain, took place at Ballarat Clarendon College’s main oval.
All funds raised through the sale of bands, merchandise and a raffle will be donated to the Breast Cancer Network Australia.
BCNA is represented by the Pink Lady silhouette, which symbolises its focus on women diagnosed with breast cancer and all those around them.
With more than 100,000 members and 300 member groups, BCNA also advocates on behalf of people with breast cancer and holds events such as the Field of Women and the Pink Lady AFL match.
Players for Pink began in 2006 when former Ballarat Clarendon College nurse Jenny Poppe was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Then students Emma McClelland and Sam Crowe decided to support her cause by staging an annual girls football match, which has been contested by Ballarat Clarendon College and either Loreto College or Ballarat Grammar ever since.
Over the past 11 years, nearly $30,000 has been raised for the Breast Cancer Network.
In 2016, it is estimated that 15,930 women and 150 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
On average, 43 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer every day.
However, while the number of women and men being diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia is increasing; the number of deaths from breast cancer is decreasing.
It is also the most common cancer with women having an eight in one chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer by age 85.
