On Wednesday 10th November 2021 Blackpool FC Community Trust held the EFL Girls Cup competition. This was the biggest female football event delivered by Blackpool FC Community Trust, welcoming nearly 100 girls from Year 7 and 8 to come together and showcase their ability, whilst playing to win the competition and go on to represent Blackpool FC in the regional finals against a host of other Northwest clubs.
The event itself was held at Stanley Park and was attended by two separate groups of 11 teams from 8 different schools. The schools represented were Armfield Academy, South Shore Academy, Highfield Leadership Academy, Unity Academy, Montgomery Academy, St Mary’s Catholic Academy, Lytham St Anne’s High School (LSA) and St Bedes High School. Each player was a credit to themselves and their school through their attitude, behaviour, and skill.
Adam Aspinall, tournament organiser for Blackpool FC Community Trust said, “The girl’s cup was a great success this year, we welcomed 11 girls teams from local schools to Stanley Park to compete for the chance to represent the club in the next stage of the competition. `We have plans to go even bigger next year and have more girls taking part. Lots of skills were on show and there was plenty of competitive action. For me, the most important thing was seeing the girls, teachers and staff members with a smile on their face and everyone walking away from the event having enjoyed themselves.”
The tournament was set up with group A consisting of 6 teams and group B made up of 5 teams. After each team played their fixtures in two competitive groups, the top two from each group progressed to the semi-final stage where LSA faced St Mary’s and Montgomery (A) faced South Shore. After two tense semi-final games, only two teams could progress to the final to be in with the chance to play in a regional tournament. LSA and Montgomery (A) went toe-to-toe in the final. Both teams worked very hard, LSA began pressing the opposition and dominating in the opposition’s half but couldn’t create the chance to take the lead due to the defending from Montgomery. It wasn’t until around halfway through the game that LSA took the lead with a well-taken goal. It was now Montgomery’s chance to begin creating chances as the LSA team began to relax, but another goal all but finished the tie and LSA went on to comfortably see out the game and win the final 2-0. This was a well-deserved victory for a team that hadn’t conceded a goal all day and had played some impressive football.
Evie, a player who took part commented on her experiences over the day she said, “It was a great experience to be able to take part in a tournament of this size with my friends who I am in school with every day. We got to play lots of football against a lot of girls who we wouldn’t usually play against”.
Blackpool FC Community Trust has exciting plans to put into place for girls’ football locally, so if any potential parents or players would like further opportunities to play, keep an eye out on our social media pages for any events or groups we are running in the future.
