Birkdale U-15s play in the biggest girls’ league in the country and have been together from U-11s, improving year after year by training hard and also having fun.
What is your team name? Birkdale U-15 Girls
Do you play 5, 6, 7 or 11 aside? 11-a-side
Does the team have a nickname, if so, what is it? Birkdale Diamonds, because our first kit sponsor was a jewellery shop and we also had two teams at our age group when we first started our at U-11s.
What colours do you play in? Our home kit is black and blue stripes, just the same as Inter Milan.
What is your teacher’s/coach’s name? Our manager is Duggy Welford. He started the team at U-11 and he does all our coaching, with help from Mark Edmondson when he can’t make matches, We have Sally Welford as our manager.
Do they have any funny sayings or things they do a lot? Duggy loves to do passing and more passing and more passing and also makes us do the bleep test that we all hate.
What are the names of the girls on the team? Goalkeepers: Lucy Edmondson, Elsie Harrison, Defenders: (left back) Sophie Gray-Smith, Alex Capp, (centre-half) Vicky Grocott, Amy Young , (right-back) Georgia Armstrong, Midfield: (left mid) Rosie Hubbard, Hannah Kelly, (Center-mid) Tamzin Elliott (team captain), Grace Cunliffe, (right midfield) Laura Smith. Strikers: Aimee Welford, Nicole Smith, Lucy Newnham,
Are there any ‘stars’ we should know about and why? The team has many great players all have their job on the pitch to do. They all keep learning, so the whole team could have a great future with lots of hard work and commitment.
Do you have a team song that you sing or a song that a lot of your team like? We don’t really have a team song but our motto is ‘we win together, we lose together’.
When do you train/practice and when do you play your games? We train on a Wednesday on a 3G 5-a-side pitch to help with our fitness and quick thinking and then on a Friday we do more ball work and shooting on the ground where we play all our games, Bedford Park in Southport. Our team plays home games on a Sunday.
What league/cup do you play in and do you have to travel far for your matches? We play in the country’s largest girls’ league, the West Lancashire League. It’s a very strong league with the likes of Wigan Athletic, Preston North End, Manchester City, Academy from Bolton, Blackpool, Manor from Liverpool, Burscough, Crosby, Bleak Hill, Marine, Euxton, so this makes for lots or travelling to away matches.
Who is the LOUDEST on the team? Where do we start!? Lucy (the keeper), Tamzin, Georgia and Sophie all like to be loud and have a giggle sometimes when the shouldn’t but I’d have to say the winner is Lucy, known by some parents as Bruce Grobbelaar!
Have you been to watch any senior women’s league, cup or international matches? If so, which and when? The girls have been to watch Everton v Liverpool at the Arriva Stadium in Crosby.
Who are the team’s favourite players and why? Well, mostly being Liverpool fans, Amy Young is mad on Jordan Henderson, with the odd stranger supporting Everton. Tamzin, the mad captain, opts for Manchester United, Rosie and Lucy Newnham love Wayne Rooney.
Why should readers check out news/results for your team? We have a match report every week in the Southport Visitor, our local paper, also the league have a web site wlgfl.co.uk.
Have you got a website? Yes and we update details weekly at www.clubwebsite.co.uk/birkdalediamonds01. We’re also on twitter as birkdalefc u15girls
Pictured (top) – Sophie Gray-Smith on the ball, (above) – Birkdale with their new sponsors, Tell Joan.com, after the 2-0 win over Manchester City.
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