When he was 14, Scott Bult was invited to trial for Leeds United.
Women’s first coach Scott Bult (left) with strength and conditioning coach Caleb Wesselson. – Photo Selina Oliver
“But dad wouldn’t let me go,” said the 51-year-old, who lived in Auckland until moving to Cambridge with his family about seven years ago.
“He wanted me to finish my education first and then go abroad. I regret it every single day.”
Bult spent most of his playing years with Waitakere City winning two Chatham Cups and the national men’s league in a team “full of All Whites” in the mid-1990s.
Today, the emergency management advisor for Waikato District Council is head women’s coach at Cambridge Football Club.
Bult’s team won WaiBop Football’s W-League this season and will play in the Northern League next season.
Cambridge Football Club’s top women’s team celebrate their promotion to the northern league with some of the junior players they mentored, their coach Scott Bult, strength and conditioning coach Caleb Wesselson and physio Hamish Lockwood. – Photo Selina Oliver.
Achieving equality within the club environment is a passion for Bult, whose daughter Olivia, 17, is in the team.
“The equality with the women’s game compared to the men’s game has to be clear and precise,” he said.
“If the men play on the first team pitch, then the women play on the first team’s pitch; the facilities cater for the females as well. Female footballers get what the men would get… there’s no reason a women’s first team should get a hand-me-down men’s strip.
“I’m very staunch on equality, and it’s caused me a few headaches over the years, but I don’t back down. It all stems back to the fact I want the same for my daughter as for my son.”
Bult got into coaching through son Jacob, now 21, and switched to coaching girls when Olivia was 10.
Since then he’s learnt a lot about what makes female footballers tick.
“Boys… you can have a harsh discussion with them and demand things, but with females, it’s a different approach,” he said. “I try and get them to find their own solutions to a problem with a little bit of guidance, so they have ownership of it, whereas with boys you can say here’s the problem here’s how to solve it.”
Cambridge High School, winners are grinners.
Cambridge High School
Cambridge High School
It’s an approach reaping outstanding results: Bult achieved a second league win this season coaching Olivia’s premier Sacred Heart Girls’ College team.
Cambridge might be a far cry from Leeds United, but the dedicated dad has found his happy place.
Cambridge Football Club head women’s coach Scott Bult celebrates his team’s promotion to the northern league on September 29 with captain Kaylee Oosthuysen. – Photo Selina Oliver.
