Blackpool FC Community Trust have been granted a three year licence to run an FA Girls’ Emerging Talent Centre from 2022-2025. This license enables us to deliver an elite girls’ football programme, enhancing girls’ football provision on the Fylde Coast until July 2025.
The programme is designed to be a central hub for local talented female players from Blackpool, Fylde and the surrounding areas and will work in partnership with grassroots clubs to ensure the offer is beneficial to grassroots players. The Emerging Talent Centre will work with grassroots clubs, schools and local coaches to identify talented female players for this elite training experience.
The Trust plan to offer a comprehensive approach to player development, giving all girls selected access to a high quality training programme, strength and conditioning coaches, access to onsite physiotherapist, nutritional advice and health and wellbeing support. This programme will be offered free to all girls attending enabling us to remove any financial burden often faced when trying to access elite level training. Groups will also be invited to play in competitive games against other ETC programmes.
The ETC offers:
- Two hours training time each week
- For girls aged 8 – 16
- Centralised venue
- Free to attend
- Access to physiotherapist
- Education Workshops
- Bespoke Games Programme (built around grassroots club commitments)
- Job opportunities within elite girls programme
- CPD opportunities for grassroots coaches
For more information please contact: femalefootball@bfcct.co.uk or register your interest here.
June 2023:
It has been a busy month for the Blackpool FC Community Trust Emerging Talent Centre! We have just finished four weeks of mid-season trials throughout May and June to find the most talented players to come in and add to our groups.
July 2023:
Our players have been working hard in training on covering a wide range of technical and tactical topics over the last month. The younger ages have worked hard on their dribbling, focusing on combining skills as well as driving into space. The older ages have been working on their pressing skills and defending 1v1s. We follow a 30-week curriculum that covers a variety of topics over the season to ensure players develop in every aspect of their game.
August 2023:
It has been a busy month for the Blackpool FC Community Trust Emerging Talent Centre! We have just finished four weeks of mid-season trials throughout May and June to find the most talented players to come in and add to our groups.
ETC August Monthly Update 2023 – Click to read more!
September 2023:
The first season of the Girls’ Emerging Talent Centre (ETC) came to an end in mid-August. After 30 weeks of Friday night training, having a (very brief!) break for our players, parents and coaching staff was nice. Behind the scenes, our Female Football Department staff have been as busy as ever making sure that everything is in place and set up in time for the start of the new season on Friday 29th September.
ETC September Monthly Update 2023 – Click to read more!
October 2023:
After lots of hard work behind the scenes during the break, our FA Girls’ Emerging Talent Centre launched its second season last month! Our players and staff were raring to go after a 6-week break following the end of last season. After a strong first year last season, we believe that our squads are even stronger this year. Our players and groups have always been technically strong, but we have now added much more pace, power and athleticism to our teams.
Over the course of the 30-week season, we will work on various aspects of each player’s development including technical skills, tactical knowledge and physical development. All of this will ensure that our players are much more confident both as footballers and as young people, by the time we finish the season in April 2024.
November 2023:
We are now well into our second month of delivery at our FA Girls’ Emerging Talent Centre (ETC)! Now that we are back up and running, we are starting to create extra opportunities for our players.
Sessions have been intense from the get-go, and the quality the player have shown has been exceptional. We pride ourselves on the standard of the players in our programme, and we have been extremely impressed with all our players since the re-launch!
December 2023:
It was another busy week at the Blackpool FC Community Trust FA Girl’s Emerging Talent Centre (ETC), as we try and provide our girls with plenty of fixtures during the course of the season.
One the back of recent wins against Westmorland girls ETC and Manchester United Girls’ Academy, we organised for our groups to play Westmorland ETC at Under 12s, and for our Under 10s, Under 14s and Under 16s to play against Preston Nort End (PNE) ETC.
ETC December Monthly Update 2023 – Click to read more!
January 2024:
Earlier in January we took our Under 14s and Under 16s groups to play against Westmorland Emerging Talent Centre (ETC) at their respective age groups. It was a long trip up to Barrow, but our girls made it worthwhile with two excellent performances.
The Under 14s put in a dominant display with a 10-0 victory, this was then followed by a mature and polished performance from our Under 16s, who played out a comfortable 6-0 victory.
ETC January Monthly Update 2024 – Click to read more!
February 2024:
We are delighted to announce the new intake of Under 9s at our Blackpool FC FA Girls’ Emerging Talent Centre (ETC)!
Over the last 6 months, we have been engaging with hundreds of girls to highlight the most talented players throughout Blackpool and Fylde as we continue to drive the standards of our ETC. Over this period, we have been working hard on the future of our ETC and finding the best Under 9s in the Northwest. Our coaches and recruitment staff have unearthed some extremely talented girls in this age bracket who we believe have the potential to play at the highest levels and compete against the best teams in the country.
ETCs are part of the new England Lioness Player Pathway, with 75 ETC licences scattered across the country for girls aged Under 9 to 16. Since the start of this season, three Under 9s have been permanently training with the Under 10s. In January, we invited a further three Under 9s to join the Under 10s. And on the 2nd Feb we invited in another seven Under 9s to the group. This gives us a total of 13 Under 9s currently in the programme.
ETC February Monthly Update 2024 – Click to read more!
March 2024:
Earlier this month we took our Emerging Talent Centre (ETC) age groups to play against Manchester United Girls’ Emerging Talent Centre. It was a fantastic celebration of girls’ football, with some of the most talented girls from around the Northwest on display.
After playing against a wide range of other ETCs previously, Manchester United was our biggest and best challenge to date. All the games were extremely competitive, fast-paced, aggressive and exciting. It was great to see our girls going toe-to-toe and looking to outscore their Manchester-based peers and playing without any fear
ETC March Monthly Update 2024 – Click to read more!
April 2024:
We are now coming to the end of the 2023/24 season with the Blackpool FC Community Trust FA Girls Emerging Talent Centre. This is the second season of our elite football programme, for the most talented girls in Blackpool and Fylde, and further afield throughout the North West.
We have had a fantastic season, demonstrated by wins against some of the biggest teams in the country and several of our age groups have remained unbeaten. The players have worked extremely hard throughout the 30 weeks. Our coaching staff have delivered high-quality sessions, and the support staff have been fantastic in providing strength and conditioning sessions and physio support.
ETC April Monthly Update 2024 – Click to read more!
June 2024:
May 2024 saw us wrap up the second season for the Blackpool FC FA Girls Emerging Talent Centre (ETC). ETCs are part of the England Lioness Talent Pathway and aim to develop girls to play at the most elite levels of the female game. ETCs across the nation increase and diversify the talent pool and give more girls than ever the opportunity to take their first steps towards playing professional football and following in the footsteps of the inspirational Lionesses.