Rotherham United

On Sunday 23rd November, over 320 girls from 33 clubs across the country attended the FA Girls’ Football Festival at Wembley Powerleague, before heading inside the stadium to cheer on the Lionesses against Germany.

Over the past year the players have all been playing football through the FA’s Women’s and Girls’ Programme, which is run in partnership with Sport England, the Premier League and the Football League Trust.

Rotherham United U16 girls attended the festival to participate in the 5 aside tournament, which was the last in the 2014 series of the 2014 FA Girls’ Football Festivals, run in partnership with Continental Tyres to encourage more girls to try out football.  More than 8,000 girls, aged between 5 and 16, have taken part in the festivals in 2014.

All U16 teams participating in the tournament were specially invited by the Premier League and Football League Trust to take part in a special 5-a-side tournament.  The clubs invited to the festival have all delivered sessions as part of the scheme, which has welcomed almost 21,000 young women into football since October 2013.

The players were also joined by the injured England and Notts County Ladies player, Sophie Bradley, who took part in all of the activities on offer, including a question and answer session, giving the girls an insight into what it’s like to play for England and Notts County in the FA WSL.

The format of the day combined football, lifestyle and music. FA approved coaches led the festival, and there were a host of activities on offer in between matches. These ranged from skills and drills to interactive games (target shoot, speed cage, batak boards)

Refereeing ambassadors Brittany Smith and Natasha Wilson delivered a refereeing workshop, while girls also had the chance to pose with the Barclays Premier League trophy.

Jamie Noble Head of Community said: “It was an absolutely brilliant day. I am really proud of the great effort our team demonstrated at Wembley. It is great to have a programme that support girls’ football in such a magnitude.”

We at Rotherham United Community Sports Trust are proud of our FFD programme and hope to get more participants involved.


For more information please contact
Jamie Noble
Head of Community
Telephone: 01709 827 767
Email: jnoble@rotherhamunited.net
Facebook: RUCST
Twitter: @RU_CST

Visit www.rucst.co.uk for more information on the Community Sports Trust.