Crew | March 2025

Matilda’s legend Sally trades cleats for work boots

Olympian Sally Jean Davis traded elite level football for carpentry
Now she’s creating opportunities for women and gender-diverse people in the trades
Sally chooses Steel Blue work boots for their comfort, their look, and their quality.

Sally Jean Davis (formerly Shipard) grew up in Australia’s unofficial sporting capital of Wagga Wagga, in New South Wales. It’s a city that leans into its reputation for producing a remarkable number of elite athletes.

“You have access to a plethora of sports and with the influence of that access, and having three brothers, it was the perfect cocktail for me to drift towards any kind of sport,” she said. “But I decided it was going to be football for me when I was about 12 and I went to the Olympic Games in Sydney and watched (Australian women’s national soccer team) the Matildas play.”

Joining the sporting elite

What followed was a meteoric rise in the sport. Sally started training. If she wasn’t in class, she could be found with a ball. Seeing Sally’s talent and her passion, Sally’s family supported her move to Sydney, so she could train with the best, her mum and little brother relocated – while the rest of the family stayed in Wagga Wagga. Just four years after deciding to pursue football seriously, at the age of 16, Sally wore the green and gold at the Athens Olympics, as one of the Matildas. The team won their first ever Olympic match and made the quarterfinals.

“It didn’t feel all that real, to be honest,” Sally said. “I was picking my jaw up off the floor most days.”

Sally went on to play for Canberra United and the German team Bayer Leverkusen, before retiring in 2014 due to injuries.

Finding a new purpose

The transition from professional athlete to civilian life wasn’t easy for Sally.

“I was incredibly lost after playing football,” she said.

A brief stint in sports commentary left her feeling empty. Having been defined as a footballer since the age of 16, she found herself at a crossroads, grappling with questions of identity.

An unexpected opportunity to “hang out on the tools” with a carpenter for six weeks turned into an offer of an apprenticeship—and Sally embraced the change.

“I love the physicality, I love the creativity, of carpentry,” Sally said. “I’m absolutely not put off by this male-dominated industry, because that’s all I’ve occupied for my entire life. It was a good way for me to get out of my head and really drop into my body again.”

Unusually, her apprenticeship began with the “strategic deconstruction” of a house, which she found fascinating.

“By taking something apart strategically, you are really seeing how things are put together,” she said.

Passing on skills and breaking barriers

Today, Sally is both a carpenter and a marriage celebrant. She teaches at the Two Sheds Workshop in Bega, alongside veteran builder Jo Saccomani. The workshop empowers women and gender-diverse people with carpentry skills.

“It’s a pretty incredible little space,” she said.

Sally balances teaching with working three days a week for a builder. She stepped away from full-time work a couple of years ago, while being treated for ovarian cancer.

“It’s been a huge time, and a huge amount of grief for my partner and me,” she said. “I’m in a pretty good place with it now, but I can’t just push my body like I used to.”

Sally is about to launch Handy Humans—a collective of women and gender-diverse trades professionals serving the far south coast of NSW. The group will offer carpentry, painting and decorating, and native garden design consultations. The collective aims to create a unique presence in a male-dominated industry and potentially expand to include more diverse tradespeople.