Chichester College and Chichester City Ladies FC have combined forces this season to bring girls’ football to the masses with a series of Football Festivals.
Two years ago there were no opportunities for girls to play football in the city, so a team of dedicated senior f
emale players from Chichester City Ladies set about establishing girls-only after school clubs which subsequently led to a regular club at a central location.
With three sides established and playing in leagues and tournaments this season, the Club and College decided to bolster numbers through providing opportunities for local Primary Schools to come to the College and take part in a Girls’ Football Festival. The project has been headed up by Chichester City Ladies First team manager Matt Wright, although the lion’s share of the work, including leading coaching, has been done by Chichester’s award winning coach Lizzy Ogden.
Lizzy has invited the local schools along where she and a team of female students lead fun-based sessions to help encourage girls to take up the sport. Several local schools have got involved in the project and the feedback from both girls and PE staff has been fantastic.
James Atkins form March School said: “The event was a great success and owes much thanks to allthe excellent leaders who helped encourage and support the children throughout the afternoon”.
Lizzy Ogden has been overwhelmed with the interest: “the uptake from the schools has been phenomenal, we were booked up very quickly and have had to provide additional dates. In total we will be coaching over 600 girls this season with the aim of getting girls along to our Saturday Club”.
The impact on the Girls’ Saturday sessions has been tremendous to the extent that the club has now been moved to Chichester University, as the previous site could not cope with the numbers.
Head coach and first team goalkeeper Hannah McNamara said: “we are now seeing close to 50 girls turn up every Saturday due to the impact of the festivals, it is exciting times for our girls set up”.
According to Matt Wright, none of this could have been possible without the support of the partners of the project: “the College and University have been fantastic in supporting the festivals but none of this could have been possible without the coaches within the Chichester Female football system, the time and effort they put in reflects their dedication to the game and their passion to giving local girls playing opportunities”.
The Saturday Club runs at the University 10am to 11.30am every week. For more information on how to get involved, contact Matt matt.wright@chichester.ac.uk.
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