The London FAs November Goals for Girls Festival took place on 9th November at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.
The festival was open for any organisations to enter such as schools, clubs and even individuals who may be looking to find a team.
This month’s festival took place on the indoor 3G dome which was a blessing considering the very wet weather on the day. Two festivals took place, one for U-11s and the other for U-13s and there were over 60 girls in attendance.
The afternoon was a great example of how we can bring girls together to get plenty of match time in 
a fun and relaxed environment without needing to keep scores and having a winner. Events like this are a great opportunity for newly formed teams, schools and grassroots clubs to come together and give girls’ the opportunity to play football in a fun and relaxed football.
Another benefit of these festivals is for clubs to help with recruiting new players through links that they can make with the local school teams that enter.
As well as the girls themselves having a great afternoon of football and benefiting from the flexible format, it was also an opportunity for three young female officials to gain some invaluable experience by officiating the matches.
We are now into the third season of the Goals for Girls programme and it has gone from strength to strength each season.
This season we made the decision to run the November & February festivals indoors and we hope that this has made it even more attractive. It is great to see so many girls from clubs and schools come together at one venue and genuinely have a fun time and play football with a smile on their face.
The next Goals for Girls Festival will be taking place on 8th February 2014 and will be hosted by the London FA, at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre (inside 3G dome). There will be U-9, U-11 & U-13 games taking place.
For more information, or to register, please contact: emma.barnes@londonfa.com or 07921 050375
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