Naturally, Bec Goring’s earliest footy memory could be a line from a song. “Out the back of our house, on a few acres on the one dirt road in Torquay, kicking with my Dad and brother.”
At primary school she and her friend Sophie were the only girls who went up against the boys. Goring remembers them wearing footy jumpers that were three sizes too big and “made out of wool, really old school”. Her height was helpful when it came to the longest kick competition. “I won.”
She played for Sacred Heart then Newtown and Chilwell, but as music seeped deeper into her during high school she was awakened to a career path football at the time couldn’t offer. Attending the Victorian College of the Arts she drifted from the game for a season; reconnecting via Melbourne University Women’s FC was a blessed reinvigoration.
“It was the best thing I did going back. It just gave me so much more balance in my life, brought me back to a really wonderful community.”
The perils of being a musician on the rise and a committed footballer were immediately apparent. Goring would throw herself into her weekend recreation, then turn up for classes on Monday bruised and with jarred fingers. “I’d lie flat out to my lecturers, ‘I’m fine, I can play guitar.’ They would have had a hissy fit if they’d known I was playing footy, it’s probably the stupidest thing a musician could do.”
She loves that she’s found a way to do both in elite company, noting the similarities between a sport that demands fine motor skills and mastering a musical craft where the guitar doesn’t change and the player is effectively the instrument. “It’s the same in football – you rehearse a skill over and over and over again until you get it right, and when you’re put under pressure, whether that be a performance on the footy field or at a live gig, it needs to hold up under that pressure and be consistent.”
As a busy player on the indie scene (supporting bands or artists or doing her own shows) Goring treats the football fixture like a road map. Friday night gigs and Saturday football are an occupational hazard (“I just try and manage my sleep deprivation”), while footy and gigging on the same day can test her resilience.
“The artists I’ve played for have been really understanding about missing sound checks, just plugging in and playing when I get there. And hoping I’m in one piece when I do.” Horrendous post-football traffic left her 20 minutes late for a Northcote Social Club gig, but the show eventually went on. “I haven’t had any train wrecks yet.”
Her music has been likened to Norah Jones and Carole King. What of her football? Physically she sees a bit of Dustin Fletcher (“we’re both pretty tall and lanky”), while at Geelong there was an immediate connection with Harry Taylor. “I think our brains tick over in similar ways. I think we both lead with our minds more than our actions sometimes. He’s really cool.”
Football is a release from music’s countless hours of exploration and refinement, but in season – especially a first AFLW season – footy is her priority. “I know that I’ll be playing music until my hands are riddled with arthritis. There’s a small window where I’ve got this opportunity to play footy and I want to take it with both hands.”
Footballers have dreamt of being rock’n’rollers for eons, and vice versa. Goring is delighted to be doing both, and can’t split the thrill of leading the Cats out as captain and having a full house in her thrall from centre stage. “I’d happily do one on a Friday night and one on a Saturday arvo, that’s my ideal weekend.”
