England Star Supports the ‘Old Girls’

/in , /by

England and Arsenal midfielder Jordan Nobbs paid a visit to Crawley Town COGs last week to see how group of older ladies have been bitten by the football bug.

The Crawley Old Girls (COGS) are a group of older women, mainly Crawley Fans and football mums who missed out playing football when they were younger as the opportunities didn’t exist.

More than 20 ladies were in attendance to show off their skills in the latest weekly get-together, showing its never too late to join the female football revolution.

Jordan, who recently won her 24th England cap in the 1-0 win over Bosnia in a European Championship qualifier said: “I think it is great to encourage more people in the women’s game. The last few years have been massive and obviously the World Cup this year when England finished third was a big inspiration to the women’s game.

“The more support that we get and the more we stick together and really put women’s football out there on the map, I think the more people are going to get involved.”

Arsenal and England women’s footballer Jordan Nobbs visits the Checkatrade.com Stadium Ball Court on Monday to promote the Crawley old girls (COGS) initiative. COGS is aimed at older ladies who have an interest in football and was set up through the Crawley Town Community foundation with funding from the Football League Trust Female Football Development scheme. James Boardman / TELEPHOTO IMAGES 07967642437

The COGs sessions have been so successful that other clubs are following Crawley Town’s lead and the initiative has also attracted financial support from the Football League Trust. The League’s Female Football Development Officer Nicole Meredith also attended Monday’s session.

Amy said: “It was fantastic to welcome Jordan and show her how successful COGs has become.

“She played for England the day before but stayed for two hours and the girls enjoyed having an England player in their session.

“The girls had a fantastic night and I’d like to thank Jordan, the FA and the Football League Trust for helping to make it such a success.”

COGs sessions normally take place on Thursdays from 6.15pm. For more details call Amy on 01293 410000 or email [email protected]

 

Coventry Girls ‘In It Together’

/in , , /by

A new project set up by Coventry City’s Sky Blues in the Community to get more teenage girls and women active has been awarded £201,604 by Sport England.

The Female Football Development programme has allowed Sky Blues in the Community to demonstrate a successful track record of engaging young women and encouraging them back in to football and physical activity, which ultimately helped them secure the grant from Sport England.coventry 3

The “In it Together” project will provide a range of free activity and fitness opportunities for women at a number of community centres across Coventry. The Sky Blues in the Community team will also be working with secondary schools across the city to offer extra-curricular sessions to young women aged 14 plus, encouraging a more active lifestyle amongst females across the city.

The aim of In it Together is to provide fitness and activity in an informal way, with no commitment or costs for those involved. In turn this will allow groups of women to get active together and to have fun doing it, sharing their stories and experiences through social media, whilst encouraging each other along the way.

The project has been made possible with funding also provided through Coventry City Council’s Public Health Department, who have allocated £38,000 towards the scheme, which will see the activities delivered for the next three years.

Sky Blues in the Community Health Coordinator Hiedi Sloan, said: “We are absolutely delighted to receive this Sport England funding. We piloted certain elements of project over the last 12 months alongside our Female Football Development programme and our consultation showed that there was a need for an alternative approach to sport and being active amongst females. Many women may have had negative experiences or perceptions of sport and a combination of that and lifestyle factors may stop them from being active.

“We aim to overcome some of the barriers, through the In it Together programme with our informal approach, and we have a strong network of partners that we are working with to make this a success and really offer something unique to the women of Coventry.”

This project is one of over 40 projects to secure a share in £8.2 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England. Encouraging people to give sport a go, the fund empowers local communities to reach out to people who for one reason or another don’t exercise.

Announcing the funding, Sport England Director of Community Sport, Mike Diaper, said, “It’s great to be working with innovative projects like In it Together which offer more people the chance to get active in a way that suits them best. Given the overwhelming benefits of being active, it’s important that age, gender, or income never prevent anyone from taking part.”

You can find out more details of the programme on the Sky Blues in the Community website www.sbitc.org

Female Football Participation passes 30,000 with the Football League

/in , , /by

Over 30,000 women and girls have starting playing football in the past two year with their local Football League club a report reveals this week.

The Football League Trusts Female Football Development programme (FFD) is run by 55 clubs across the country and aims to get women and girls playing the game.  Perhaps more importantly the figures also reveal that over 97% of the women and girls who have been introduced to football have continued to be involved.

Nicol Meredith, Female Football Officer with The Football League Trust, comments, “Getting so many girls involved in the programme that are new to football and the massive retention rates shows the power that football clubs have in their communities. The programme focuses on having fun as well as the social and health benefits of playing football. This innovative approach has led to football clubs running brand new activities that appeal to girls who wouldn’t normally be interested in football such as Soccercise and Zumba Fitness Football, which are football based aerobics sessions. ”

The programme is funded by The FA and Sport England and was launched in 2013 to get women and girls aged 14 and over to start, and continue, playing football using the reach Football League Trusts and Premier League to deliver at grassroots. This is the first time that all four organisations have worked on a project of this kind.  It was announced over the summer that due to the success of the first two years of the scheme more than £3,700,000 of joint FA and Sport England investment will be allocated to the programme by July 2016.

Furthermore with the success of the Lionesses at the World cup, we are looking to capitalise even more on the extra interest that this has provoked and get more girls benefiting from playing football.” As well as getting hard to reach groups involved in the game our sustained approach to developing female participation is getting more women in key positions at professional Football League clubs and their Community Schemes. Nicol, continues “Football has an amazing power to break down all kinds of barriers. Another success of the programme is that participation among minority ethnic groups in the FFD programme is over 20%.