Introduction To Motherwell Fc Ladies

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Guys,

Thank you to Steelmenonline for creating this subform.

 

I am Charlie Bennett the General Manager of the Club's Community Trust. The development of the female game comes under my remit. I thought it might be an good idea to give you a context for the development of the female game here at Motherwell and a little insight into our plans for the future.

 

Our objectives in terms of the girls and women game are:

 

to increase participation in football

to increase the Motherwell FC fanbase

to promote equality and diversity across sport and in particular football

to promote increased mental and physical wellbeing in females

 

Over the last several years the Club and indeed the Trust have dabbled with female football but never got it right. Two years ago we began developing a plan which would allow us to meet the objectives we detailed above, and secure the resources we required. What you are seeing now is the result of that plan. In the last few months we have been engaging with top women Club's (at Champions League level) and the plan has been modified to amend this.

 

At the moment we have around 150 girls playing football with us at Under 9, Under 11, Under 13, Under 15, Under 17, and the Ladies team - although we plan to increase that significantly.

 

Under 9's through to Under 17's operate through our Girls Performance Centre. Its important to emphasise the role of the GPC is to ultimately produce players for the Ladies first team. The model we have for this is probably unique in its approach. For example our Under 9 and Under 11 squads come to Fir Park straight after school twice a week. They are provided with a nutritious snack, and homework support is available through a tutor - they then go to training. Our Under 15 squad is providing players for the national and regional development teams, and our Under 13's and Under 17 teams are doing well in their first season. Indeed there are players in our Under 15's and Under 17's squads who could perform well in the Ladies team and they will soon move up. We have had the SFA out looking at the Under 9 and Under 11 squads and they were incredibly impressed by the quality of player. We are confident many of our current playing squad will line up in the blue shirt of Scotland in the years to come.

 

Our Ladies team sit at the top of the players pathway and are a squad built for success. We had been aware the SWF were reorganising the structure of their leagues, and we were given initial encouragement that entry to the premier league would be criteria and resource led. However, the SWF decided to remain with the pyramid system and we were consigned to the bottom league despite probably having one of the best playing squads in the country.

 

The Ladies team have also been fantastic role models for the Club, encouraging younger players, and soon they will be featuring in videos that will promote keeping young girls/women safe.

 

Our plans for the future are very ambitious. We have three incredibly exciting initiatives coming up over the next few months which we unfortunately cannot share with you yet. When we do announce then, however, everyone in women football will sit up and take notice. Ultimately our goal is not just to get to the top league in Scotland but to represent Scotland in Europe.

 

If you need more information you can contact me at Graeme McArthur team manager at or Girls Performance Centre Manager at

 

We are also happy to supply players and coaching staff for Q&A sessions, etc.

 

We are all looking forward to a lively discussion board but please guys - cut out any inappropriate comments. We won't condone this and they will be reported to the moderator.

 

Lastly - a wee word about the Rangers game. Rangers have been playing in the SWFL2 this season, in a different regional league, and have run up the proverbial cricket scores in many of their games. They were a tough nut to crack but I'm sure anyone seeing the game would have enjoyed the Motherwell performance, particularly second half when we dominated and could on another day have scored more goals.