In the 2004/2005 football season, Broughton Ravers JFC in partnership with Lincs FA arranged for a Kickstart session for girls at Broughton Junior School.
So many girls turned up that two seven a side teams were formed (the Broughton Ravers and the Broughton Girls) and both were entered into the now defunct South Humber Ladies League at U10 in 2005.
The Ravers team (pictured below): Mollie Smith, Marie Smith, Danielle Hamer, Caroline Hicks, Hayley Bunyan, Courtney Smith, Sian Marshall, Chelsea Smith and Carly Glew.
The Broughton Girls team (below): Bethany Moulds, Danielle Charlton, Hayley Benstead, Kylie Huxford, Laura Johnson, Leah Patel, Payton Ball, Rebecca Cuthbert and Sophie Angus.
There was also an existing girls’ team (managed by Mark Ward) that played until the 2008/9 season when they were in the U13 age group.
Mark’s girls enjoyed futsal and played an Australian team in Grimsby in March 2006.
In 2008, the Ravers team won a tournament at Ordsall.
In June of the same year the same team played in the prestigous FA Umbro National Futsal Championships in Sheffield.
They got through to the final of the Plate competition where they lost 2-1 on penalties to the girls from Sheffield Utd Academy (team pic at the top of this page).
In March 2009 another Kickstart session was held at Broughton Junior School. The girls that came to the two sessions, (held on March 24th and March 25th), a third Broughton Ravers girls team was formed, like the other teams, from one class at Broughton Junior School.
The story of this very successful Ravers girls’ team is well documented.
Girls from just one class at Broughton Junior School formed the core of a team that won the South Humber Ladies league six times, (2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12 , 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15), the league cup four times, several big tournaments and scored more than 700 goals on the way. They also competed in the FA Youth Futsal Championship in Sheffield.
In 2011 they were North Lincs Council Junior Team of the Year and were also awarded the prestigious FA Fair Play award. In 2012 they were the Lincs FA Charter Standard Club of the Year.
They had headlines like these written about them:
- Ravers win the biggest trophy in the world at Prestatyn!
- Ravers win the Cleethorpes Classic, meet Peter Shilton and bag another big trophy!
It’s doubtful that any junior football team – girls or boys – has enjoyed more success in such a short time.
Sources:
- The original website, https://broughtonravers.wordpress.com/
- Way Back Machine, December 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/2017*/www.broughtongirlsfooty.co.uk