Football Stars Inspire Young Girls Before England WCQ

On Saturday 5th April, Brighton’s American Express Community Stadium will welcome the women’s England team as they take on Montenegro in their next World Cup Qualifier ahead of Canada 2015.

Brighton and Hove Albion are taking full advantage of hosting the clash by encouraging participation in Albion in the Community’s girls’ football development centre. The sessions run every Tuesday at Blatchington Mill School in Hove, and as added inspiration they invited England defender Hannah Blundell and Albion centre back Cally Beaumont to motivate the girls.

Albion in the Community is also running a ‘taster session’ at St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School on the 27th March in the lead up to the England fixture in April.

It seems AITC have the right idea, they are making the transition from ‘taster sessions’ to technical coaching as fluid as possible.

Providing the girls with strong role models they can identify with is essential. England defender Hannah Blundell was candid in discussing the sacrifices she’s made to get where she is. She told Latest Sport: “It’s taken pretty much all my life, we train every day, sometimes double sessions.

I don’t really have much of a social life, with working as well, but it’s what I wanted to do, so I’m happy to do it.”

As part of the session, the girls were able to ask Hannah and Cally about their journey and it was enlightening to hear the impact their presence had on the class, like 11 year old Isla Murton who told us: “I want to play for England, I just want to play football professionally.”

The ideal legacy of England’s game with Montenegro is to have more girls playing the game and to increase the number of sessions. Kim Stenning is part of the coaching set up at AITC and says the desire is there: “We deliver to 21 schools a week, just for girls. So really we want to get the girls going!”