England Ladies’ Beach Soccer Assistant Manager, Liam Greenfield, looks ahead to the team’s first international match on Friday June 20th in Quay Street, Manchester, KO 7pm.
This Friday sees the first ever England Ladies International Beach Soccer fixture, the game will be against Switzerland and is part of ITV’s ‘World Cup Fever Pitch’ event in Manchester.
Since the team’s inception in 2012, players from several clubs along the South Coast have been involved in training sessions and with England’s only other fixture to date, against an Isle of Wight select team.
Summer 2013 saw the inaugural year of the National Beach Soccer Tour in England and the Portsmouth leg saw Chichester take on their counterparts from Brighton and Portsmouth in a league-style tournament. Chichester were victorious that day, not losing a game and now four of the players that played in that winning side will have the opportunity to represent their country after training with the national squad for the past month.
Jade Widdowson, Kally Ambler, Emma Alexandre and Hollie Wride have all been selected to travel to Manchester, as well as myself as assistant to Portsmouth’s manager Perry Northeast.
It’s a real testament to the girls’ hard work outside of their regular season to earn themselves the opportunity to represent their country. From a club perspective, it’s fantastic to have four of our players being selected for this event and having worked with them on the sand last summer and on the grass throughout the whole of last season, they are all very deserving of this chance
Emma Alexandre said; “After last summer, we were all really keen to play beach soccer again this year and when we heard of the opportunity to play for England we obviously jumped at the chance!”
Kally Ambler spoke of her sense of pride at having the chance of representing her nation; “To have the chance of playing for your country is the ambition of all people involved in sport. I’m not sure it’s quite sunk in yet but I’m sure it will when we step on to the pitch and hear the national anthem being played.”
The game kicks off at 7pm on Friday 20th June. You will be able to see the game on the Beach Soccer Worldwide website at www.beachsoccer.com.
For directions to the venue, the former Granada Studios car park in Quay Street, click here.
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