In the end, 90 seconds was all we had to celebrate the milestone that had taken Michelle Heyman 15 years to achieve.
Just 90 seconds to reflect on an entire history-making career: to remember her struggles and her sacrifices, to recount her many trophies and awards, to replay the highlights of her century of goals in our heads.
Indeed, the broadcast commentators had barely finished their glowing odes to the greatest striker in A-League Women history when, 90 seconds after she scored her 100th goal, she leapt up into the sky and immediately took her tally to 101.
It was the most Michelle Heyman thing she could have done, really.
The Canberra United forward has never been one to rest, after all; she has never been one to stay where she is. Like her goal-poaching instincts, her career has been defined by a relentless hunting for something more, pushing herself to somewhere further, finding newer and higher ceilings to touch.
That drive has been there since the very start.
After signing with Sydney FC in the W-League’s inaugural season back in 2008, a lack of game-time and opportunity led to her requesting a move elsewhere, already knowing she had so much further to climb.
The Central Coast Mariners were waiting, and it was there that she showed the country what she was capable of. She won the Golden Boot after scoring 11 goals in just 10 games and received the first of two Julie Dolan Medals that she’d receive in recognition of being the league’s best player.
That was a sliding-doors season for Heyman. Her thunderous club form resulted in her making her Matildas debut in March of 2010, kicking off an international career that would span eight years, four major tournaments, 61 games, and 20 goals.
But it was in club-land where her status was cemented. After the Mariners folded in 2010 due to a lack of funding, the 22-year-old striker was snapped up by powerhouse club Canberra United, where she would remain for majority of the next decade.
It was there that she helped the club win the Premiership-Championship double in 2011-12, including a brace in their grand final win to become the first team in W-League history to win both titles undefeated, as well as two more titles over the following two seasons.
It was there that she won another Golden Boot and another Julie Dolan Medal, the latter coming 11 years after her first in a testament to her enviable longevity and commitment to a competition that has become longer, harder, and better over time.
And it was there, in front of a scattered crowd this past Saturday afternoon, that she transcended the status of a great player to become a legendary one.
“We’re witnessing a special, special moment in A-Leagues history,” said commentator and former teammate Teresa Polias as Heyman wheeled past the Canberra bench giving high-fives to players and staff following her 100th goal.
“Despite all those challenges — the lack of resources, short seasons, developing the financial side of the game, and much more — she’s continually been able to craft her game and hone her strengths to absolutely dominate.
“The word that comes to my mind is ‘perseverance’.
“She came into the league at the beginning as virtually an unknown, and she’s worked her way to greatness.”
It has been a long and winding road for the 35-year-old, who has had to fight multiple inner and outer battles on her journey towards history.
She was part of a generation of players who had to juggle multiple jobs in the competition’s early years just to keep herself afloat.
Twice she tried to take her talents overseas, spending six months in Denmark and a season in the USA, but both paths resulted in dead-ends that saw her circle back to Australia, spending her W-League off-seasons with her hometown NPL club, the Illawarra Stingrays.
Her Matildas career, which was shrouded in anxiety for the most part, came to an abrupt and painful end in 2019 after a series of injuries pushed her to the team’s periphery and forced her to pull the pin herself.
Her club career soon followed, with an underwhelming season at Adelaide the last time anyone thought we’d see Heyman play in the league she’d worked so hard to build from the very start. Citing burnout and a loss of love for the sport, she stepped away from football altogether.
But a year was all she could manage before Canberra called her home. She always knew she had unfinished business, having seen Sam Kerr eclipse her goal-scoring record in previous years. And she knew she didn’t get to finish her club career the way she wanted to: saying goodbye in the green of her beloved United.
So she came back.
Canberra re-signed their legendary striker for the 2020-21 season, where she immediately began to repay the favour, scoring 10 goals to help the club back into finals after a couple years in the wilderness. Nine goals followed the next season, and 12 after that.
She currently sits on seven — third in the Golden Boot race — and yet each goal Heyman scores feels so much bigger and more important than any other player, perhaps because of how much more of herself she has had to pour into each and every one.
Scoring 100 goals in any circumstance is remarkable. But to do so in regular league seasons that were just 12 games long until 2021, where minimum salaries and professional contracts weren’t introduced until 2017, where pitches and facilities have been regularly criticised, where the competition takes place during blazing Australian summers, and where part-time players are asked to travel across the country for four to five months a year, makes Heyman’s 100 truly unique.
Alongside being the A-League Women’s all-time leading goal-scorer, Heyman is also its leading appearance-holder, having played more games than anyone else in its history.
Some of her current Canberra teammates recall watching her from the grandstands when they were young, desperately wanting to be just like her.
Heyman knows how far the game has come in the past two decades. She knows because she is one of the reasons it has come so far at all.
As part of a generation of lesser-known legends, she has carried women’s football forward into an era where those who come after her don’t have to suffer what she did in order to create the history she has.
While future players may surpass her century on the field, aided by longer seasons, greater off-field support, and fully-professional competitions, they will never be able to surpass what Heyman’s century means, or what it took for her to get there.
But 90 seconds was all she gave us to celebrate it, because for Michelle Heyman, there will always be newer and higher ceilings still to touch.
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