Ahead of Michelle Heyman’s 200th Ninja A-League appearance, aleagues.com.au travels back through the years to highlight the key moments in the Canberra United icon’s record-breaking career to date.
Loyalty. Goalscorer. A good human.
Legend.
They’re the words Michelle Heyman hopes to be remembered by when, eventually, the evergreen Ninja A-League great calls time on her illustrious career.
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But fear not; that day won’t come any time soon. There’s plenty more for the 36-year-old to achieve before then, beginning with a feat no player in the competition’s history has managed before: playing 200 games in the Ninja A-League.
Heyman will reach that milestone on Sunday afternoon and it’s only fitting that McKellar Park, home of her beloved Canberra United, sets the stage for the historic achievement.
The Ninja A-League’s record appearance maker and all-time top goalscorer is also a two-time Julie Dolan Medalist, two-time Champion and three-time Golden Boot winner – and she’s achieved it all on either side of a one-year retirement in 2019.
An icon of the Ninja A-League and the CommBank Matildas, Heyman’s remarkable career will soar to even greater heights this weekend and, looking back at her journey to date, A-Leagues commentator Teo Pellizzeri put it best on this week’s episode of Dub Zone.
“You could almost split Michelle Heyman’s career into two segments, and have a Football Australia Hall of Fame level career in both halves,” Pellizzeri said.
“Not many athletes in world sport can do that.”
Michelle Heyman (2008-2019)
- 115 Ninja A-League games & 63 goals
- 61 Matildas caps & 20 Matildas goals
- One Julie Dolan Medal (2009)
- Two Ninja A-League Golden Boots (2009, 2011-12)
- Two Ninja A-League Championships (Canberra United 2011-12, 2014)
- Two Ninja A-League Premierships (2011-12, 2013-14)
Michelle Heyman (2019-present)
- 84 Ninja A-League appearances & 54 goals
- 16 Matildas caps & nine goals
- One Ninja A-League Golden Boot (2023-24)
- One Julie Dolan Medal (2020-21)
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THE RUN HOME: Five hours can decide the Premiership & experts divided in Golden Boot debate
Seventeen years ago, the baby-faced striker from Shellharbour burst onto the scene in the very first season of the Ninja A-League.
One season at Sydney FC preceded a breakout campaign at Central Coast Mariners; 11 goals in 10 games after seven goals at the Sky Blues took her career tally to 17 and, at just 21 years of age, Heyman ended the 2009 campaign as the league’s Golden Boot winner and Julie Dolan Medallist.
In the 16 years since, Heyman’s goal tally has climbed to 117 in 199 games. Fellow Matildas veteran Tameka Yallop sits second on the all-time scoring leaderboard with 71, highlighting the freakish nature of Heyman’s scoring prowess.
Heyman’s status as a bona fide legend is beyond dispute in 2025, as it was in 2019 when, after one challenging season at Adelaide United, she announced her shock retirement from football.
At the time, Heyman had 61 Matildas caps and 20 international goals. She’d made 115 league appearances, scored 63 times in the Ninja A-League, and had two Golden Boots and two Julie Dolan Medals to her name.
After one year out of the game, Heyman returned to Canberra United.
With her mind and body revitalised, Heyman has added 84 league appearances to her career tally. She’s scored 55 more goals for Canberra and secured another Golden Boot and a third Julie Dolan Medal to add to her trophy cabinet.
In 2024, after a six-year hiatus, Heyman returned to the Matildas fold; she’s earned 16 more caps and scored nine more times for her country.
A Hall of Fame career pre-retirement. A Hall of Fame career post-retirement.
Combine the statistics, trophies, and all of the accolades across those two chapters of her career, and you’re presented with a player who has made an indelible impact on Australian football, with a legacy that will transcend generations.
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On the eve of her 200th Ninja A-League game, the Australian football community commemorates Michelle Heyman for all of the things she hopes to be remembered as: a loyal and good human, a goalscorer, and a legend.
“I can’t believe I did it,” Heyman said, reflecting on the eve of her 200th appearance.
“I think it’s just like, who would have thought that? From the league in 2008, playing 12 to 14 games to today, being able to tick over the 200 (game mark), it’s just an incredible achievement. I feel very proud and just grateful to still be playing the game.”
It could have ended so differently for Heyman who, in 2019, felt her love for the game had waned.
Speaking to aleagues.com.au in late-2020, Heyman revealed how one season in Adelaide, and the heartbreak endured after a string of injuries that robbed her of the chance to represent Australia at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, led to a breaking point.
“I think that when I made my big retirement, I was literally not in a happy place,” she said at the time.
“I was mentally drained and I felt deflated. I didn’t feel like myself. I was mentally not stable.
“On top of that, I physically wasn’t that fit and strong enough. I was carrying a couple of injuries that just wouldn’t leave me alone.
“With the amount of rehab, the amount of training, the amount of facilities and people you have around you, it still wasn’t getting any better.
“So, I felt the best way out is to just say ‘catch you later’ and ‘thank you for everything you’ve done’ and ‘I’m out’.”
THE RUN HOME: Five hours can decide the Premiership & experts divided in Golden Boot debate
That one year away from the game was full of highs and lows. It was the year Heyman lost her late father – her biggest supporter and driving force behind her football career.
It was also around the time Heyman found love, meeting her partner Christine, who will soon become her wife after their engagement last year.
In mid-2020, Heyman realised her hunger to return to football couldn’t be ignored and, after a phone call with then-Canberra head coach Vicki Linton, was advised to return to football through the NPL.
Heyman signed for NPLW New South Wales club Sydney University, unsure whether to trust the instincts telling her she still had what it took to make an impact in the game.
Her first league appearance for Sydney Uni was on Father’s Day, in September of 2020. Heyman played the music of John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival – her father’s type of music – in the car as she drove toward the venue.
“My Dad was my biggest supporter. I got to the field and I was feeling quite nervous and emotional,” she said.
“I was like: ‘Alright Michelle, it’s been a long time. Let’s just see what happens.’
“We were playing Football New South Wales Institute and I got on the field and ran past the young people, and I was like: ‘Oh wow, I’ve still got my speed.’
“I cracked up laughing because I was unsure where I was at. Second touch, I scored a goal.
“I just jumped straight back into the swing of things, and I was like: ‘Oh, I’ve got this.’ For myself, to be able to see that and feel that in that game, it was a good feeling, a very positive feeling.”
Before long, Heyman had rediscovered what she had once forgotten about the game. Football was her “happy place,” and although it had taken an early retirement to remember that simple fact, it was something she swiftly recaptured on her way from Sydney Uni back to Canberra United.
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Looking back now, she wouldn’t change anything about her journey.
“It was just the love of the game,” Heyman said. “It’s my happy place, just being able to run and kick a ball around. The days when I’m not feeling great and I’m unhappy on the field, I’m like: ‘Okay, I think I need to take some mental time again and just relax and remember why I do it, and how, how fortunate and how lucky I am to be able to do this as a career’.
“So for me, having those bad times, I really learned from it to be like, “Okay, well, if this makes you happy, then go do it’.
“I think true friendships definitely stood out when I was feeling low, and you could really see who supported you throughout your playing career. So it was actually kind of interesting to see what really happens when you step away from the field and do you still stay in contact with former teammates and whatnot.
“But I was lucky enough to put myself in a good situation and have some time away, learn a bit more about myself, and just kind of enjoy being away from the football to heal and then, you know, to get that little fight back to be like, actually, I’ve missed this a lot.
“It all started in COVID, just kicking a ball against a wall, it just brought back so (many) memories of why I do it.
“It’s been a really tough journey, but it’s been an incredible one. I wouldn’t change it.”
In anticipation of Heyman’s 200th Ninja A-League appearance, teammates past and present have come together to appreciate the enormity of the impending achievement.
Sydney FC great Teresa Polias held the all-time Ninja A-League appearance record before Heyman eclipsed her 157-game tally in 2023.
Polias still remembers a day in 2008 when 120 players arrived at Valentine Park to trial for Sydney FC ahead of the first season of the Ninja A-League. Polias was one of those 120 players, and so was Heyman.
“Her journey is phenomenal, isn’t it?” Polias said on Dub Zone.
“I can recall back in 2008, 120 of us trialling for Sydney FC, all the Mariners out on fields five and six at Valentine Park, and just to see her journey (ever since)…. after all of it, the football speaks for itself. But she is a good human, and she’s made every team culture and environment better. And that’s the biggest thing.”
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MAGIC MARINER: Coach’s huge praise for ‘untapped talent’ who ‘deserves’ to be in the Matildas squad
For the likes of Heyman and Polias, racking up appearances in those early days of the Ninja A-League wasn’t easy.
The competition began with just eight clubs and 10 regular-season games in 2008. In 2010-11 the regular season was extended to 12 games and remained that way until 2021-22 when it became a 14-game regular season. The following season featured 18 regular season games and now, thanks to the expansion of the competition, players can amass 23 games every regular season.
“It’s wild,” Heyman said, reflecting on the early days of the competition in comparison to where it is in 2025.
“I think about it over and over again, you know, seeing the girls get their caps of 50 here and there. And I’m like: ‘Wow, I’ve been around for a long time now!’
“I think just the amount of games, being able to play everyone home and away, is something really special. That’s something that we’ve been fighting for for many years, to see that within football is incredible.”
Canberra United defender Hayley Taylor-Young was just six years old when Heyman made her Ninja A-League debut in 2008. Now they’re Canberra teammates; 53 of Taylor-Young’s 63 appearances in the league to date have come alongside Heyman in a Canberra line-up – the most out of any of her teammates since her debut as a teenager in 2019.
Taylor-Young is just 23 years old, and part of the next generation of players benefiting from the efforts of the Ninja A-League’s trailblazers who put the competition on their shoulders in the early years and helped to craft it into what it is today.
To the young defender, Heyman is not only a teammate but an idol, a footballing hero and now, a best friend.
“I think I was probably not even in primary school (when Heyman debuted),” Taylor-Young said.
“I (grew) up idolising her and now, she’s literally one of my best friends. It’s so weird and different to see how life changes, and how many friends you get in this environment and everything.
“She means everything to us. She teaches us so much in training, she’s a coach on the field kind of thing. I look up to her so much, and I always ask for her opinion in certain things during the game and stuff like that. And then she’s always willing to help and lend a hand.”
THE RUN HOME: Five hours can decide the Premiership & experts divided in Golden Boot debate
This weekend, as game 200 appears on Heyman’s radar, the Canberra legend is eyeing more of everything: more goals, more accolades, more silverware and most importantly, more of the happiness that football has provided her for so many years.
“I’m very grateful to be able to be in this league, to (have met) the people that I’ve met,” she said.
“Every coach, coaches opposite other teams, or even the Canberra United family. And for them, I thank them, because I’ve learned so much through every single coach that has come through Canberra United. And being able to have the support from them still to this day.
“I still chat to people who have come through the ranks here at Canberra, and it’s really special, because this is what this club means. It’s family, it’s home. And, you know, you play here, you’re stuck! It’s nice.
“(I want) more of everything,” she added.
“I think it’s more about being that leader, being that mentor, helping the rest of the team achieve what they want to achieve as well, just making sure that I go out there and give it my all and try and be the best role model as possible, but also score as many goals as I can, win awards, win trophies, and bring that shine back to Canberra United.”
Canberra host Wellington Phoenix at McKellar Park at 3pm AEST on Sunday afternoon. Be there to witness history as Michelle Heyman plays her 200th Ninja A-League game! Get your tickets today.
