Players and coaches from Workington Town Women and Workington Town Girls Football Club have come together for a very special photoshoot.
It officially marked the beginning of a new chapter in the club’s history and celebrated the efforts that the organisation has made over the past 12 months, while working with Workington Town RLFC.
Around a year ago what was formerly known as Workington Reds Ladies FC, started discussions with parents and players that were leaving the junior football ranks the following summer.
This was followed by a series of exploratory meetings which culminated in the club running taster sessions over the earlier part of this year which were led predominantly by reserve team manager Nigel Thornthwaite and assistant manager Jeff Nicholson.
Such was the success of these sessions, the club continued them throughout the summer months and in turn amalgamated these sessions in to pre-season training, with the club by that stage having committed to their first season in the Lancashire County League North structure.
By the time the season had started, the club’s numbers had swollen and experienced players from the Andrea Buggy Summer League structure had jumped on board.
Fast forward 12 months since the initial steps were taken and the club’s reserve team is sitting at the top of their league and unbeaten in the eight fixtures they have played up to date.
Around the same time as the reserve team concept was being built, the club had also started to consider a rebrand, which would see themselves align more closely with Workington Town RLFC in name and in the choice of playing colours.
Months of hard work followed both on and off the pitch. The change in name to Workington Town Women FC was accepted by the relevant governing bodies and work to secure shirt and strip sponsorship was taken up by Northern Competitions, Grants Oak Smoked, M&I Travel and Electric Executive Cars Cumbria.
Later came the news that Allerdale Girls FC were joining forces with the women’s teams and rebranding themselves in the exact same way. It enabled a full pathway from Under-6 to adult 11-a-side football for female footballers from the local community.
With the reserve team being established, for the first time ever there was more the one route to this. The girls section eventually got over the line in October and took delivery of their new playing strips.
The positive impacts of this collaborative approach have already been realised this season.
Workington Town RLFC have provided a fantastic playing surface to host this season’s games, having committed to a programme of pitch repairs at the end of the rugby season, which saw them working closely with G&M Lawson and reaping the obvious benefits in the quality of the playing surface.
After many months of very hard work, lengthy negotiations and a level of patience across a wide section of people, Sundays coming together meant so much more to most than a simple photo opportunity.
To some it marked an occasion that they thought they would never see, having battled for equality in the game for most of the adult life and often without an end product. It offered hope for the future to players that want to play at the highest level locally when they turn 16.
In other cases, it offered pleasing reward for months of work where so much was squeezed in to a short period of time with an aim of delivering a fresh start.
Both clubs thanked the work of all of the volunteers at Workington Town RLFC, Workington Town Women FC and Workington Town Girls FC and offer their sincere appreciation to all of the companies, family members and individuals that have committed their support through sponsorship for this season.
