Girls’ football scores big in Melksham

GIRLS’ football in Melksham in thriving on the back of the Women’s World Cup and the Lionesses’ victory in last year’s Euros.

Melksham Town FC girls’ football coach, Rob Bridges reports that girls’ football is growing in popularity and has seen a big surge over the last year.

“The Lionesses have become ambassadors and this has given girls football a huge boost,” said Rob. “More girls are playing the game and they now have role models; when you ask them who their favourite England player is, it isn’t Sako or Grealish it is Toone, Russo, James, Bronze, Mead etc.

“The Lionesses continue to inspire interest in women’s football on the back of the success of the Euros hosted in England and I can only see this increasing after the World Cup.

“Last season saw many highs for the girls’ section of the club with the U18 girls winning the Bristol League, the U15 girls winning the Wiltshire Girls’ League and U13 girls winning their league. We also had two teams win the County Futsal competition and we represented Wiltshire at the regional finals in Birmingham. We had around 130 females playing regular football last season including those at the Future of Football and Forest youth plus the Wildcats.

“The season finished with us having six teams, a ladies’ team plus a Wildcats team, playing in festivals organised by the Wiltshire County Women’s and Girls’ League where they play games in a non-pressurised environment for their first taste of matches.”

It’s not just Melksham which is seeing a boost in girls’ and women’s football; the whole of Wiltshire is seeing a surge in interest.

“With my role as fixture/result secretary for the county girls’ league, I can see the expansion of the girls’ game across the county,” said Rob. “More and more clubs are offering girls’ football and creating new teams which provides more fixtures for the girls. An example of this is that our U11 age group has 22 teams this year.”

Developing friendships, learning new skills, keeping fit and being part of a team, Rob says, are all benefits of playing football.

“Playing football also opens up new opportunities such as refereeing and coaching,” said Rob. “This season Melksham Town have two new female coaches that are ex-youth players from the club, Katie and Lexi, who will be managing our U10 and U13 teams; we also currently have five female referees at the U16 level.”

Other things boosting the popularity of women’s football, Rob says, are the Women’s Super League games being televised on a regular basis, big clubs having a women’s team such as Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea plus the cost of attending to watch these teams live at an affordable price. He said, “Having Bristol City in the WSL will hopefully attract more players to attend games with parents.”

For the Melksham club, they aim to encourage more girls into the sport and plan to reboot the FA licenced Wildcats programme for girls in school Years 1 to Year 4 which will start on the 13th September.

Rob said, “Please look out for adverts regarding this. Alongside this is a new initiative by Future of Football for the schools’ league which will also give girls more opportunities to play school football at primary school ages.”

Playing football with Melksham has unlocked doors for three ex-players who are now off to America to play college football.

Rob said, “The club are developing some very good players and playing at a higher level in the ladies’ game. Female football in the county has seen a massive up surge in the last five years in particular and we do not see this stopping any time soon.”