The Zambian Copper Queens football team will live in Hamilton during the Fifa Women's World Cup 2023 tournament. Photo / Getty Images
The Zambian Copper Queens football team will live in Hamilton during the Fifa Women's World Cup 2023 tournament. Photo / Getty Images
The pitches are mowed, the changing rooms are sparkling and the countdown to the Fifa Women’s World Cup is on: Hamilton, which will host five matches throughout the tournament, is definitely ready for some football action.
The city’s four training grounds Porritt Stadium, Korikori Park, Gower Park and Beetham Park are now under pitch protection and the Zambian Copper Queens arrived today in Hamilton, where they will be based for the tournament.
The Copper Queens will play their first match against Japan on Saturday, July 22. They are the only team that is going to be based in Hamilton.
They come fresh off a victory last weekend when they played two-time champions Germany as part of the World Cup participants’ friendly games ahead of the World Cup.
Zambia were leading 2-0 before Germany thought they had salvaged a 2-2 draw after two stoppage-time goals. Then Zambian superstar Barbra Banda, 23, scored a last-minute winning goal that stunned the sold-out crowd in Fürth, Germany.
Germany dominated the match, but Banda’s lightning speed constantly threatened the German defence on the break, scoring the opening goal just after halftime and setting up Rachael Kundnanji to double the Zambian lead 10 minutes later, before the Germans hit back with two late goals.
Qingtong Li of China and Barbra Banda of Zambia during their Tokyo 2020 Olympic Women's football match. Photo / Getty Images
Banda, who plays in the Chinese Super League for Shanghai Shengli, has had a career that former All Black Sonny Bill Williams would be impressed with.
The striker started her sporting career in boxing when she was 14 years old and remains unbeaten in five professional bouts. She gave up boxing for football and became the first Zambian woman to sign a professional football contract, with Spanish club Logrono.
But not only Banda herself has had a spectacular run so far. She is part of a record-breaking generation of Zambian women, who qualified for their first Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Banda became the first player to score hat-tricks in consecutive matches, against the Netherlands and China, and one year later, Zambia finished third in the African Women’s Nations Cup, earning their first ticket to a Fifa Women’s World Cup.
WaiBoP Football legacy manager Dr Alida Shanks, Hamilton mayor Paula Southgate and Sport Waikato chief executive Matthew Cooper at Porritt Stadium. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer
Now in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Zambians are hoping to break even more records when they play Japan and Costa Rica in Hamilton and Spain in Auckland.
Meanwhile, Porritt Stadium has received a $630,000 revamp, including gender-neutral changing rooms, showers, floodlights, and a re-sown football pitch.
The money for the revamp was part of a $19 million Government investment to support upgrades at 30 sporting facilities across the country. Hamilton received a total of $1.15m that was split between FMG Stadium, Korikori Park, Porritt Stadium and Gower Park.
Hamilton City Council major events project manager Rebecca Aston says the Porritt Stadium changing rooms were built in the 1970s but have now seen “dramatic change”.
The Porritt Stadium changing rooms have undergone a massive revamp from block walls and shared showers (top) to heated rooms, individual shower cubicles and lockers with phone charging ports (bottom). Photos / Danielle Zollickhofer
“We removed the urinals and put on a new roof and lockers which all have phone charging ports and the showers are now individual cubicles with doors. We also installed heaters,” Aston says.
Hamilton mayor Paula Southgate just remembers the old changing rooms all too well.
“Block walls, cold, shared showers, now what you’ve got is modern facilities... that are fit for elite athletes.”
Southgate says although the upgrades were made for the football World Cup, they would benefit local football and athletics clubs for years to come.
“This will hopefully encourage more young people to stay in sport a bit longer because the changing rooms more pleasant experience.”
Waikato Bay of Plenty Football legacy manager Dr Alida Shanks adds: “There is certain mana that comes with the FIFA World Cup... which will go back to local clubs. They will play on the same pitch as Zambia and all the other top teams from all over the world.”
