Doncaster Rovers Belles striker Courtney Sweetman-Kirk has hailed her current and incoming team-mates ahead of the 2016 FA WSL 1 campaign – and says she is ready for the challenge of the top-flight.
By Hayley Paterson
Sweetman-Kirk was announced as a professional footballer with Belles on Christmas Day, and she still can’t believe she’s landed her dream job.
“It hasn’t quite sunk it yet but that may be because I’m still working. I’m sure once I’ve worked my notice I’ll be very excited,” said the 25-year-old.
The club’s Project Phoenix plans to create a state-of-the-art training facility in Doncaster and give full-time contracts to 10 Belles players is now well under way and Sweetman-Kirk couldn’t hide her delight after visiting the site for the first time earlier this month.
“It’s very exciting and, after seeing it, it’s better than I ever imagined. To have these facilities on our doorstep, I just can’t wait to get started,” said the former Notts County and Coventry City ace.
This winter has seen the Belles bring in some high-profile signings as well as turn a number of last year’s promotion winning players into professional footballers and Sweetman-Kirk believes the new additions will only improve the squad.
“Everyone is really excited that Donny can draw this calibre of player now and personally, playing with someone like Tash [Natasha Dowie] and learn from her week in, week out will be fantastic”, added the forward from Leicester.
“And the players who have been kept on this season, it’s for a reason because they’ve got us to this stage and everyone is more than capable of competing in FA WSL 1.
“We’re all very excited and hopefully the team will gel quite quickly and we can hit the ground running.
“We’re all a very motivated bunch but bringing the calibre of players in that we have, it definitely gives you that extra push. We’re ready to show everyone what we’re made of.”
The major upside of going professional is that the team will be training on a full-time basis and ‘CSK’ believes this bodes well for Belles to have a great season.
She said: “As cheesy as it sounds, the possibilities are endless.
“We’ve achieved so much only training twice a week so knowing that we’ll be in day in, day out, two or three sessions a day, it’s very exciting to see where we can be at and how much we can improve on a personal level and as a squad.
“You saw what Sunderland did last season so I’m sure we can emulate that.
“Staying up is the key aim but we all know we’re better than that. Come October, November time, I know we will look back knowing we’ve had a very good season.”
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