The bases are always loaded for one Auckland family when it comes to softball. Three generations of the Bromheads have a deep love for the sport, covering administration, coaching, and playing, for club, region and country.
Fran Bromhead was born and raised in Hawke’s Bay, before moving to Australia when she was 21. Across the Tasman she gave birth to her three daughters: Rebecca, Kyla and Tegan.
It was Rebecca who made the first pitch to start playing more than 30 years ago. Her best friend, who lived next door to the Bromheads, signed up for T-Ball (an introduction for kids to softball/baseball). Rebecca went with him and that was the start of it.
Fran made the decision to take the children back to New Zealand in the late 1990s, and settled in Auckland, where her mother and sister were living. But even before they jumped on that plane, Fran was making contact with softball clubs and after arriving, the girls started playing in the North Harbour competition.
“The quality of coaching was important to us, even when we were 16 or 17 years old,” says Kyla.
“We were with North Harbour. The stand-out clubs for us were Roosters and Northcote and we had a few seasons with each of those clubs in the effort to try and get a premier women’s team into the Auckland competition. They do have one now but at that point in time it just couldn’t get over the line, so Rebecca was actually picked up by Waitākere Bears as a player for a tournament about 20 years ago and from then on we just transferred over because Waitākere Bears has a premier women’s team, so that was the start of it and fast forward 20 years and here we are,” she says.
Kyla became part of the White Sox programme in 2006 and her older sister Rebecca joined her the following year. But after the best part of two decades at the top, both have retired from the White Sox this year.
“The mind is very much there and we can still compete with the best of them but it’s time,” says Kyla.
“Those ladies that are in that squad now, we’ve played with them, we’ve played against them, we’ve coached them, we know every single one of them and we were genuinely happy to see those names,” she says.
Carrying on the family legacy is Kyla’s 19-year-old daughter, Tyarn Bromhead-Lemalu who is now part of that White Sox set-up, having first been named in 2022. And her sister Vida is in her second year as an Auckland under-13s representative.
“I was very, very lucky that one of my last tours with the White Sox was in Australia for an invitational tournament and me and Becs were there for her to put on her jersey so that was fantastic. It definitely was the milestone for me,” says Kyla.
Rebecca, Kyla and Tyarn continue to play together for the Waitākere Bears as well as Auckland. Last month, they represented Auckland at the National Fastpitch Championships, which they won, beating North Harbour 2-0 in the final.
Earlier this month, they travelled to Christchurch for the Sky Sport Women’s Open Club Championship where Waitākere Bears finished runner up to PCU Angela, losing 4-3 in the final. Tegan was on coaching duties.
“My playing career was cut short. I’ve been quite unlucky with injuries and surgeries and so I had to stop playing a few years ago. But when your whole family is in softball, it became quite hard to separate it,” says Tegan.
“[Former Black Sox player] Dion Nukunuku was our coach for premier women at Waitākere and he basically got me back involved and so I was the outfield coach at Bears and then it just kinda proceeded from there. He wanted to take a step back and asked if I wanted to take the squad this year, so we flipped roles and I became the head coach this year. That’s exploded and I ended up coaching quite a few teams. In the off-season last year I was invited to help the White Sox which I loved. I’m still very much a baby coach and I’m finding my feet but I really love and enjoy it. It’s really good to be a part of it when you can’t play anymore,” she says.
“I coached some youth teams when I was a player and absolutely hated it, but now that I’ve stopped playing, the new appreciation for what you can bring to the game and how you can help people, definitely my thought process about it has changed a lot over the years.”
Completing the three generations of involvement, Fran acts as manager, committee member and pretty much everything else.
“Somebody’s got to be on the board, somebody’s got to be on the committee, somebody’s got to raise the money, that’s my role,” says Fran.
“I’ve loved it. I love seeing the new kids coming through. It’s a lifestyle. They talk about getting your kids into sport, it keeps them out of trouble, These girls never got into trouble; they were always too busy training. It teaches them work ethic. It teaches them how to get on with people, how to work hard, make friends. They’ve made friends all over the world – so have I now,” she says.
Their collective experience gives the Bromhead family a powerful sense of how women’s softball in New Zealand has developed this century, and like so many amateur sports for women, there are issues that always exist, throughout the generations.
“From what I’ve seen of the women’s game it’s very different but much the same. We continue to struggle to maintain youthful talent through those key, life-changing years of late teens into early 20’s,” says Kyla.
“A lot happens for a woman at that point and it’s coming of age, you do have some that go off, become mums and feel they can’t play anymore, or, family takes precedent and there’s nothing wrong with that. Retaining women into the sport has always been a focus but also an issue. We see people come but then we see people go and we then see people return 10 years later when they’ve raised their children, and then they want to play again,” she says.
Having a family so entrenched in softball has helped them all to stay the course when others may be taking time away from the sport.
“We’ve all gone through our stages where we thought that maybe we needed a season off, or we needed a break, something like that, but how can you have a break by yourself when the rest of your family is at the ballpark,” says Tegan.
“So you keep going back to the ballpark. There was definitely a bit of sibling rivalry where, if she’s doing this, then I want to do this, or if she makes this team, then I want to make this team, so we would keep pushing each other to be better and better and better and then obviously Kyla had her daughters and so then I as well, we want to be a part of their career and we want to watch them and it just kind of snowballed, for lack of a better word, where if it was just one of us playing I don’t think the longevity would have always been there,” she says.
Apart from their own family, there’s also a wider softball community that the Bromheads are a central part of, and for them, that’s where the magic of the sport lies.
“Softball is a very community-based sport. You know other people on other teams. You know their kids. Your little one’s playing and your teenager’s playing, it can roll right throughout the day. It’s that community that is built around the sport that I think kept me in it as long as I have been playing,” says Kyla.
“It’s a tough sport, I’m not ever going to say it’s easy, it’s bloody tough, but it’s fun and anybody can actually give it a go and that’s the thing, it really is a sport for anyone of any talent and it has its own community that comes with it.”
