Sacha Wainwright

Sacha was born in Canberra in 1972. She played Australia Rules football for an all boys team in Canberra from 8 years old and then started playing football at age 11 while living in the United States. Returning to Canberra aged 14 in 1986, she joined Western Creek Soccer Club and progressed through the ACT representative schools, youth and senior teams, representing the ACT for over 18 years. She was an ACT Academy of Sport scholarship holder for approximately ten years and an AIS scholarship holder for about seven years. Sacha progressed through the young Matildas to the Matildas and earned her first international cap against Russia in 1994 at age 22. As the holder of Matildas international cap number 76, Sacha represented Australia at senior level for over 12 years with 65 A-international caps including 2 World Cups and 2 Olympics, being the 1995 World Cup Sweden, the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the 2003 World Cup USA and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. She was the vice captain of the Matildas between 2002 & 2004 and captain of the Canberra Eclipse in the former Women’s National League including when Canberra became National League Champions in 2002. She overcame several injury set backs during her career to get back to international level including recovering from 3 separate knee reconstructions at various times during her career. Sacha retired from international level football after the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, which the first time Australia had progressed to the quarter finals of a World Cup or Olympics and the Matildas best ever result at a major tournament of 5th place. Her record throughout her 18 years of football at elite level is all the more remarkable as she managed a busy workload as an elite athlete with school, law studies at university and practicing as a lawyer, while competing for Australia. She was awarded with the AIS Vocational Award and the ACT Academy of Sport Balanced Athlete. In 2000, she also received the Australia Sports Medal for contribution to Australian sport and has been for a volunteer on various sports committees and associations. Sacha Wainwright is one of Canberra’s highest profiled and most capped football players along with Julie Murray, Ned Zelic and Carl Valeri in the modern era.   FOOTBALL Born: 6 February 1972 Inducted: 2010   Full Member