Spring Hills’ Aleks Sinclair offered her ticket to the Football Victoria gala night to others, thinking there were others at the club who were more worthy of an invite.
Unbeknown to her, some people at Spring Hills were in on a little secret that would be revealed at the gala on Friday night.
Sinclair had won the National Premier League Women’s biggest honour the Gold Medal.
She shared the top award with Bulleen Lions’ Danella Butrus on 27 votes.
Speaking a couple of days later, Sinclair was still stunned at taking out the honour for the first time.
“It’s such an honour,” she said. “It’s been a long time in the making and I can’t believe it.
“I had no idea. At one point throughout the week I said to the club do you want to give my ticket to another committee member?”
“[Coach] Tom [Markovski] said you have to come. Everyone at the table knew. I was shocked to even see my name in the top four.”
For SInclair and Butrus, they are both at different times in their career.
While Sinclair is coming towards the end of hers at the age of 38, Butrus is only just starting out.
Sinclair said she messaged her co-winner to say she was honoured to share the medal with her.
“As you get older both in life and in the game, there’s so many more challenges,” she said.
“To achieve something like that, you never know when time is on your side.
“She has a huge future ahead of her and opponents like her help me get better.”
Sinclair played most of career as part of the successful Calder United outfit before being selected in Western United’s inaugural A-League women’s squad.
After retiring from A-League W, Sinclair decided to join her local club, Spring Hills.
She said it had been a number of years in the making.
“I watched them at lower leagues when I was at Calder United and every year Tom would give me a call about one day coming and playing for him,” she said.
“After the A-League I reached out to him with some good news. He thought I wanted to coach, I wanted to play and help the club get to the top.
“He was so over the moon. That was 2023 and we came third in the league and runner up in the grand final [in Victorian Premier League women].
“I said when I come back, give us two years and we’ll be in the NPLW and we trusted each other and made it happen.”
Sinclair said Spring Hills had been seen as one of the little guys and looked down on in the past but had shown that clubs in the west could be successful.
“Little kids and girls want to come and play for the club,” she said.
“We are in the NPL and we will have one of the biggest trials in the history of the club this season which is huge.”
Sinclair said winning the Gold Medal had given her more motivation to keep playing for as long as possible.
She said she wanted to continue to give back and help Spring Hills push for finals.
“My family and friends have been my biggest supporters and seen everything on and off the pitch since I was a kid.
“I’ve been able to get through the tough times and maybe I can be an inspiration to those going through the tough times and show them that something like this is possible.”
