TNS face a thrilling and testing remainder of the season, with the West Midlands Premier Division side still on course for a treble.
How did your team get started?
The club was founded in 2002 by John Parry and John Lloyd. John Parry remained involved with the club until 2011 taking the Saints to the Midlands Combination League before leaving the club. Both had their daughters playing and there were no women’s clubs in North Shropshire at the time, so created a partnership with TNS to use the name. A couple of seasons later the club merged with Shrewsbury Town Ladies, both were competing for the best players in the county and created one leading club, with this being re-named TNS Shrewsbury. This then had girls feeding directly out of the Shrewsbury Town Girls Centre of Excellence. The club then changed it name to TNS Shropshire, with Shrewsbury Town having little involvement, so the name change meant that the club was more independent. 
In 2014/15 there was a restructure and the club appointed Peter Wilson (pictured right) as Head of Girls’ & Women’s Football, changing the branding to The New Saints Ladies (TNS). The marketing and media side would take the forefront in the promotion of the club and developing links with other clubs and schools in the area. This would prompt the introduction to more age groups at the club adding to the youth section.
The Saints expanded in the summer of 2011 and created two new sides at U-16 and U-18 level. The first season saw a development format, finished off with a tour to Barcelona that saw them face St Gabriel, Reus and Spanish giants RCD Espanyol. In 2014/15, the addition of U-10s, U-12s and an U-14 development side, completed all age groups for the first time. The club now hopes to expand and have a full U-14 side, U-8s and also a reserve team to allow for gradual progression to the ladies team.
Do you have a fairly-settled team?
We have been lucky this season, with a new management team taking over in the summer it’s always a worry what changes will be made but Joe Thompson and Will Wynn have been fantastic with the girls. They are getting the best out of all the players under them and the additions that have been made have only added to the quality that we have to offer. For the Saints this is a first time in a number of seasons in which we have travelled with a good number of the same girls week in week out and with the U-18s taking any additional spots in the side, making sure that we travel to all games as strong as we can.
Joe Thompson gives instructions
How did the 2013/14 season go for you, what do you expect from 2014/15 and who are your biggest rivals?
Last season was a successful but frustrating season for the club. We finished our league campaign with four games still to play, playing our last fixture on the last Sunday in May. This obviously hindering our promotion chances, seeing us finish fourth in the table. On the plus side we reached the FA Cup second round, which saw us host Stoke City, only the third time we have reached that stage in the club’s history. We also retained the Shropshire Cup, beating league rivals Allscott 6-0 at Shrewsbury Town’s Greenhouse Meadow.
This season’s expectations were to better the last, we targeted at least an FA Cup 3rd Preliminary Round. We achieved this and went on and reach the 2nd round for the second year in a row. This time we hosted Derby County at Park Hall, only going down 5-3, which already shows improvement from 12 months previous. In the league, we set the target of promotion, we knew this would be difficult and even after winning all our games so far, we are still faced with the possibility of losing out due to Birmingham & West Midlands Police also doing so well this season. We want to retain the Shropshire Cup for the fourth season in a row and make it our ninth win overall in that cup.
Tell us a top fact about your team:
In the 2012/13 season, our U-16 side won 5 trophies, the most notable of which was the FA National Futsal Cup, which they won in June at the Birmingham International Futsal Arena, winning on penalties in the final.
Who is your captain and tell us a bit about her?
Amy Tomei is our club captain, she has been at the club since 2008 after joining from Shrewsbury Town Girls Centre of Excellence. Since joining, Amy has won five Shropshire Cup’s with the club and also part of the FA cup side of 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons. Amy is a player whom you can always rely on, even when she is having a poor game by her standards, she effects the game from the centre of the park.
What about your coach / manager – Are they serious, funny, good / bad and why?
It would be hard to find anyone better than Joe Thompson and Will Wynn. Joe is the tactician, serious when he has to be but still engages in the banter that the ladies have. Will (pictured left) everyone would probably say is the joker of the club, he makes the atmosphere so much better. In all seriousness, the addition of both of these have allowed the club to develop it’s own DNA and philosophy, hopefully leading to creating a style of football that can be played at every age group throughout the club. We are still on for the treble and this would be testament to what these two have brought to the club, allowing players to express themselves fully and reach their potential.
Does the team / club have an unsung hero?
With the club’s success this season, a lot of the attention has been on our strike force; Emily Ridge scoring nearly 30 goals and Abi Cottam getting 20 before moving to Aston Villa in January. But you need to remember the fact we have 13 clean sheets out of our 24 games, so a lot of credit needs to be given to Charlotte Edmunds, Nicola Walford, Kate Huntbach and Hannah Yates, who have been our predominant defenders but sometimes go unmentioned.
Who is always first to the bar / on the dancefloor on a night out?
It’s really competitive to who is first to the bar but Jade Hill is always the first to the dancefloor. We’re all hoping that they will be their come the end of the season after what could be the club’s most successful campaign ever.
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