Katrina Gorry knows there is more to life than football. And it is her life off the pitch at the moment that is driving the Matildas midfielder to reach new heights on it. The experienced playmaker says she is the strongest she has ever been, nearly two years after giving birth to her daughter, Harper.
“I feel like my body’s in better shape than it ever has been before,” Gorry says. “After I had her [Harper] it’s almost like my body went and reset. And little niggles that I had before her have just gone away and never come back. So it’s been pretty cool how it’s almost just refreshed my whole body.”
Gorry had been suffering from osteitis pubis (inflammation of the joint between pubic bones) before she became pregnant, and given it can be exacerbated by pregnancy, she was concerned it would make her return to professional football even harder. She need not have worried.
“I thought I was going to have to rehab for months after that, but it was completely gone after I had Harper … like my pelvis had completely reset and it just went away.”
Breastfeeding posed another challenge. “When I was feeding her up until a year she was just sucking everything out of me and I couldn’t eat enough food to maintain any sort of muscle. So since I’ve stopped breastfeeding, I feel like I’ve been able to gain some more muscle and it’s definitely the strongest and best I’ve ever felt.”
Beyond her physical return to fitness, Gorry credits the support of national coach Tony Gustavsson and the wider Matildas backroom staff for providing the “massive turning point” to help get her to where she is now: ready for the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
It wasn’t at all long ago that pregnancy brought a huge amount of uncertainty over a player’s career, rights and financial situation – on top of any other response to the news. When former Matildas goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri lost her contracts and funding 10 years ago after having her daughter she had to fight hard to get back into the sport.
That scenario is still a reality for many but there has been significant progress in the last few years. The sight of USA’s Alex Morgan training with her seven-month bump was high profile evidence of that. In 2022 a WSL player took paid maternity leave for the first time, and earlier this year Iceland’s captain Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir won a landmark case against her former club Lyon for underpaying her while she was on maternity leave. The shift means women no longer have to wait until retirement to have children.
“The national team have been absolutely amazing from when I told them I was pregnant until now,” Gorry says. “That made me want to return at the best possible state that I could … to give them back that, because they gave so much to me in that time where they could have realistically just given up.”
Gorry says it’s always been her goal to try to get back for the World Cup and it was a promise she made to Harper too. “That’s who I’m playing for every game, every time I step on the field and every training session,” she says.
She remembers having “everything crossed” in June 2020 while waiting to hear whether Australia and New Zealand would succeed in their bid for the tournament, and whether she playing in a World Cup on home soil was in the realm of possibility for her career.
“As a kid it’s something you dream of, we probably just never thought it would ever happen,” Gorry says. “I think football in Australia really changed from that moment.”
Something else she never thought would happen is the individual recognition she now receives, with people coming up in the street to say how excited they are to watch the Matildas’ games.
“I think that’s where it really hits,” she says. “That people are starting to become interested in not just the Matildas but watching women’s football. That, for us, is massive in Australia. We have such strong footballing roots here in all different codes. I think to grab a few more supporters for the women’s game and for football in general is going to be super important in the next couple of months.”
The Queenslander started playing football in her home town of Brisbane before making the move to Melbourne Victory 2009, then Adelaide United, then Victory again. After a stint in Canada’s W League, Gorry returned to Australia in 2012 to join Brisbane Roar, where she has played between club seasons in the US, Japan, Norway and now Sweden. She’s been a regular starter with Vittsjö GIK since signing in 2022, where she plays with fellow Matildas Charlotte Grant and Teagan Micah.
After a year-and-a-half out of the national team to have her baby, Gorry returned for the two-game international series against New Zealand in April 2022. In the lead up to the first match in Townsville, Gorry spoke about how her time away had renewed her passion for football, revelling in “playing with the pure enjoyment of the game again”.
The adaptive midfielder played the full 90 minutes in both games, setting up chances for Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord and Tameka Yallop, as well as making attempts on goal herself. Gorry’s ability to keep the midfield calm in possession was a welcome change after the Matildas’ shocking quarter-final exit from the Asian Cup months earlier.
Her successful return to the national side was in part enabled by the inclusion of Harper and Yallop’s daughter, Harley, in the Matildas camp – setting the bar for how players with children would be enabled to perform at their best.
“Tony’s told me how supportive he is of the situation, and since that first day that’s all we felt really,” Gorry says. “Camp life for me is so easy, I can completely concentrate on football and know that Harper is safe, happy and healthy. I think that’s probably why I’m playing my best football. And I think the change in that has been huge for us.”
But the benefits of having the children in camp are not limited to their parents; when Harper and Harley walk through the door, Gorry says “everyone’s eyes light up”.
“Win, lose or draw, they’re always going to have a smile on their face. They just break up camp life a little bit and make it feel more like a family and that there’s more things to life than football. Hopefully a lot of clubs moving forward can really learn from that.”
Harper has been front and centre of Gorry’s return to the Matildas. She’s sitting on Gorry’s lap in the camp dining room, dishing out high fives as the players walk on to the pitch, and back in Gorry’s arms on the pitch as soon as the final whistle blows.
“For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to have kids,” Gorry says. “Now to be able to share these moments with her is something that I hold so close to my heart. It all comes together when I get to hold her in my arms after the games.”
