Barcelona born, Scotland settled, Aussie adopted. Dr. Noemi Llamas Gomez has ventured on a huge journey all over the world before making it to Adelaide and positioning herself as newly promoted, Flinders United’s right back.
Although Glasgow had allowed Noemi to complete her PhD in Hispanic Studies and added an interesting addition to her Spanish accent that would confuse anyone listening of her origins, it was love and weather that brought her to Australian shores:
I was born in Barcelona. I lived there for a big chunk of my life and then moved to Glasgow to do my degree and I spent 10 years there. I think if you’ve lived in Glasgow for long enough, you realise it’s always raining! We [my wife and I] came here to visit my in-laws one summer and we were here for 10 days and it was 40 degrees every day. Obviously, it was the middle of winter in Europe, and I was like ‘What are we doing? It’s raining all the time...and so let’s just give it a shot.’ It’s now been seven years this year!”
Although Spain is undoubtedly recognised as a football mecca and can lay claim to the only female footballer to win the coveted Ballon d’Or Féminin twice, Alexia Putellas, the country wasn’t always rife with opportunity for young females to ply their trade in the sport:
I played soccer when I was a young kid in school, basically at recess and what not. But when I was like 12, when I went to secondary school, you couldn’t really play anymore. There were no teams for girls. It really pains me to say but this is what it was like in the mid-90s in Spain, even now it’s a bit difficult. There was no opportunity for girls to play soccer, so I had to play basketball.”
Noemi’s footballing journey took at large hiatus, only restarting again about 5 years ago in a social setting with friends when she was “definitely way over 30”! Through re-entering the game, Noemi felt she was in a good spot with her physical fitness to push herself to new heights:
Myself and my wife (Alex Beaton), both of us wanted to go and test ourselves because we got to a point where we were 32 or 33, maybe we’ll give this one last shot. It’s been fantastic since we’ve been at Flinders… we’ve gone from strength to strength, not just as individuals but as a team.”
After dedicating much of her life to studying, Noemi was looking for an outlet to channel her creativity outside of her impending thesis. Although adamant she wasn’t going to study it, Noemi chose to follow her love of photography as an excuse to “do something else”.
At first it was just pictures of my cat, smaller things like going on holidays or at the beach. Then I started bringing the camera to different sports and one thing led to another. I follow a lot of sports teams and I see a lot of sports photographers, and I knew I would love to do that, so I started researching how to do it and just tried to copy”.
Noemi’s “hobby” has now led her to photographing from the grassroots level, all the way up to the A League Womens and the Matildas through a UK-based sports photography agency, Sports Press. Noemi decided off her own back that she was going to go to the Cup of Nations once her beloved Spain were announced as tournament participants, booking her own accommodation, and sorting her trip itinerary before she received a call from her Agency indicating they had a client, a specific team, that wanted extra coverage…and it was Spain!
When they told me who it was, I was over the moon and I was like ‘God, by all means yes!’"
They wanted the full works. I did all their match day -1 trainings. I did gym sessions, morning walks, the tournament presentation, the games themselves. It was full coverage.”
Although Noemi recognises photographing the tournament as a lifetime achievement, dedicating her services to give back to her club at Flinders United still holds a huge place in her heart:
I love taking photos of the elite players, but I love the grassroots stuff as well. Our minis are amazing, our junior teams are great to photograph, our senior women, you can see them enjoying themselves a lot in the pictures, I would struggle to find a picture of them where they weren’t”.
Flinders United face 2-time WNPL champions, Metro United WFC on Sunday 25th March to cap off Round 3 of the Go Sunny Solar WNPL.
