Brand new female football team Cougars Under 10s were amongst a posse of twelve squads from eight clubs who ignored the storm clouds and heavy rain to enjoy a 4v4 festival at Woodbridge High School, Woodford, and now the Essex County FA hope others follow their lead and develop new sides next season.
Poor weather conditions couldn’t harness the fun at the latest festival held in Essex’s London Boroughs. It included Under 9s and 10s squads who played in three groups of ‘round robin’ games and the 4v4 format suited many of the teams who had only recently been established with limited numbers. Eight of the sides were from the Boroughs and the rest from Outer Essex, Kings Langley Belles also travelling from Hertfordshire.
Cougars, based in Harold Wood, are the most recent club in the Boroughs to get involved in developing girls’ teams and the future looks bright for their new Under 10s. Over the past few months the Essex County FA’s Community Coach, Lucy Faraday, and a team of casual coaches have been working hard in local primary schools to entice girls to come along to Cougars’ club on Saturday mornings with the aim of setting up a new team.
Over an eight-week period there had been up to eight new girls training at Harold Wood Park and, during that time, Lucy has also been working with a female volunteer at the club every Saturday who will hopefully lead the team. On the final session delivered by Lucy the club received a 3 Lions FC starter pack which included an equipment bundle of bibs, balls and cones and the girls also received goody bags for the part they played.
Sharon Brownlie, Development Officer for Essex’s five Boroughs, said: “The weather at the 4v4 event was truly awful and the girls did so well to brave the conditions! It was pleasing to see so many from the London Boroughs and, in particular, Cougars FC and Ryan FC who we’ve been working closely with. Cougars have a great new facility which is female friendly and we hope their work goes from strength-to-strength. They’ve already attended one of our events and we look forward to welcoming them to more.”
For more information on the women’s and girls’ game in Essex’s London Boroughs, contact Sharon Brownlie on (01245) 393074 or E-Mail [email protected] Alternatively, for Outer Essex, get in touch with Emma Manning on (01245) 393076 or [email protected]
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