Barbara Cox did not set out to be a soccer pioneer. She did not set out to be a player at all, but was nominated for a place by husband Roy Cox, who then also went on to take the national team.
Twenty years later, she has stopped her playing, coaching and administrating to do university work. In that time she has played in and coached many top sides, played in Auckland championship teams, winning Auckland teams and the national side.
Soccer became a family sport with two daughters as well, and Barbara has accepted all of soccer’s challenges, including the first and major one, getting to know how to play the game.
In 1987 she became the first female holder of an NZFA Senior Coaching Badge and was, in 1991, named as Auckland Coach of the Year.
With Eden, she embarked on a tour of Canada, America and Ireland to end her active career, for the meantime. There were other tours, notably to Sweden to win the Dana Cup with a team of talented young girls. That 1990 tour was one of the highlights of her career, but no more so than the championship wins with Eden and Mt. Wellington.
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Her time in the game corresponds with that of the Auckland Women’s Football Association, now incorporated with the Auckland Football Association.
Auckland won their first national title in 1981, and has enjoyed much success since.
On the international front, New Zealand has made great progress with success in the Asian Cup in 1975, and, although she was not in the team, the Oceania Cup win in 1983. There were also three series in Taiwan.
Barbara was also the co-producer of the technical report for the FIFA Under-17 series.
In 1988 Eden asked her to coach a boys’ Under-12 side, and a coaching course for the club coaches, then become the Junior Director of Coaching in the following year. This pushed her into the Centres of Excellence, as Director of GRE Central in 1991 and 1992.
Always a thinker, Barbara has switched to psychology. Soccer fans, particularly those of the women’s game, are hoping that she will bring her thinking and energy back to the sport, the game she was press-ganged into twenty years ago and has seen rise to prominence.
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