A trailblazer for women match officials, Jenny Bray, was inducted into the Football Australia Hall of Fame on Thursday night at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.
Bray has devoted 40 years of her life to refereeing and making refereeing accessible for other women. She set the original path for future Australian women referees through her distinguished career as a national and international referee, helping raise awareness of the calibre of Australia's women referee talent pool at FIFA, and the Oceania and Asian Football Confederations.
Bray started her refereeing career in 1984 with the St George Association before moving to the NSW state league level.
Her hard work and focus on advancement and training saw her appointed Australia's first female FIFA referee in 1995.
In 1998, she turned her sights to referee coaching and assessing for the national governing body, and in 2000 was awarded an Australian Sports Medal for her contributions to date, despite having a number of years of service ahead.
Bray moved to Malaysia in 2006 to take on a development officer role for the Asian Football Confederation (where Australia had only recently joined) where she mentored and assisted female referees to develop from national to FIFA international standard, some becoming FIFA World Cup referees.
More recently, she moved back into a local role as Director of Coaching with the St George Association (Football NSW) and continues in her role as an AFC Referee Assessor.
We spoke to a fellow referee and someone who has been mentored by Jenny, Jacqui Hurford, as well as Barry Such - who has been involved in refereeing for over 40 years - to gain a deeper understanding into Jenny's contribution to refereeing in Australia.
Bray's achievements in refereeing
Bray was the first-ever female Australian FIFA referee and went on to work at the Asian Football Confederation, demonstrating her value to the refereeing community.
"She's led from the front with integrity, with honesty and with trust," Hurford told us.
"She's definitely someone I could have gone to and trusted her with anything, and she would champion you no matter what you achieved. She would be your number one supporter, whether it was open or whether it was more behind the scenes.
"She led in the referee coaching space. She went over to AFC. So she broke down so many barriers to help us, our generation, to come through and to be able to lead. So she started that path for us, and now we're all making our own paths with her."
"For any referee in this country, the biggest achievement is actually getting yourself onto the FIFA list in the first place," Such said.
"That's the pinnacle, when you go into the coaching structure - that's putting something back and extending your career.
"Because there are a number that don't actually go past getting the FIFA ticket, and there is a set retirement age for that, and they don't go any further. But there's also quite a number like Jenny, that do keep going."
How Jenny changed the women's refereeing scene
Hurford described Bray as a pioneer for women's refereeing, someone who opened the doors and inspired others to follow in her footsteps.
"I saw Jenny, and then I saw the fact that there was actually a pathway for women, and that just blew my mind," Hurford continued.
"I went, 'I can actually do something with this'. I fell in love with football at nine years of age, and I saw that I could actually go explore the world, doing something that I completely loved."
Such agrees with Hurford's assertion that Bray acted as a trailblazer for other women who aspired to become professional referees.
"The point of significance is that she was the first FIFA female referee for Australia, and that's very significant because what it did was open the door for other females," Such explained.
"Automatically, everything that happened was refereed by males and that shouldn't have been the case. But what she did started the movement away from that and quite a few other Australian women after have done well on the world stage.
"She actually blazed the trail for some of the others, and they may be better than her - that's irrelevant.
"We've gone from not having a prominent female doing something to now where they select females for the elite men's A-League, the top league in the country.
"Refereeing was a man's world, and a female had to break the barriers down, you've got to have not only the ability to do it, but the strength of character to do it as well. If you are doing something and you're not achieving your goals, some people would say 'I'll go do something else'. But she was determined that she was going to succeed, and she did.
"Women are now accepted throughout the game, not only in women's football but men's football and high-level junior football. It's now the case that if you're capable, it doesn't matter what gender you are; you get appointed to do the job."
Jenny's service to the game
Bray continued to be involved in the refereeing scene, mentoring younger referees on the path she had already trodden herself, something that Hurford - and many others - are grateful for.
"Another word that would come to mind is helpful, or someone that I could depend on if I ever needed help," she said.
"I knew I could ring her, and she would be there no matter what the situation was."
Such, meanwhile, believes that Bray's longevity is one of the key reasons for her success and believes that her recognition in Football Australia's Hall of Fame is richly deserved.
"Her length of service is a key issue to me, and she has never given it up," he added.
"She doesn't look like giving up because she's still involved in one of the Sydney regions. And it's about time that the significant people had their names recognised and she's one of them and a key one as well. It's timely."
The importance of recognising referees
Hurford emphasised the importance of seeing referees recognised on the national level, especially for their achievements on the world stage.
"We [referees] don't feel a part of the football family and that is probably my biggest thing, but we're some of the most successful Australian representatives in World Cups," she continued.
"But in the press, we probably have got two lines or a glanced-over achievement. But the work behind that, to get to that has been immense, and normally it's been funded, it's been driven by ourselves, and not with the support of our country.
"It's great when we are recognised to this extent, to this public extent, in regards to the Hall of Fame. And it's great that Jenny is joining the likes of Tammy Ogston and Mark Shields.
"We have a really proud history of FIFA match officials within Australia, but not only FIFA match officials, but people that have also done really great roles within the community, up to the national leagues, that probably deserve a spot there as well."
