This year she’s taken on the role of head coach of the Northern Football Federation team contesting the 2014 National Women’s League after four years as an assistant.
It’s a big step up for the 41-year-old, who earned 77 caps with the Football Ferns, but she’s confident she’s the right person for the job.
“I started playing a bit later and I got some good advice from John Herdman [former Football Ferns coach], to make sure I keep my badges going and get involved in New Zealand Football through coaching and coaching education,” Bindon says of her early career.
“I’ve been coaching and involved on that side pretty much through my entire career and towards the end of the campaign to Germany in 2011 and London in 2012, kind of parked the coaching for a little as I was just focusing on being a player.
“It got to the point where I needed to play or needed to coach.”
With a background in sports management and marketing, coaching and sociology, Bindon believes coaching was an aspect of the game she was always going to step into.
“I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of it and I tend to keep getting pulled back to coaching, which I really enjoy.”
New Zealand Football are keen to get more female coaches involved in the game and it could be considered that Bindon is there to make up numbers – but that’s not the case.
“I know FIFA’s stated and New Zealand Football has stated that they want more females to be involved as coaches, and I think that’s true,” she says.
“But I think the girls want the best coaches to take the role and you know, I’ve been doing this role for quite some time now and feel that it’s time to step up to the task at hand and I’m really excited for the opportunity.
“And I believe the girls are getting one of the best coaches in the Northern Federation area, and not just a female.”
After playing a crucial role in the Football Ferns 2007 and 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup campaigns, Bindon knows the benefit these events can have on development.
She says with the community in New Zealand being so small, the opportunity to collaborate and progress the women’s game is important.
“With New Zealand being one of the dominant countries in Oceania, it’s important that we unite and ensure that doesn’t go away,” she explains of the need for local coaches to work together.
“The opportunities, across the board for men and women, to go to World Cups and play in some of these big tournament, it’s important that we keep that legacy going.
“It’s one of things I talked about when I was playing, to build a legacy, and I think one of the legacies you can give back is taking the knowledge that I’ve learned from the John Herdmans and the Tony Readings and passing that on – and coaching is a way that I can pass that on to future generations to come.”

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