For the first time, The FA and Sport England are joining forces with the Premier League and The Football League to provide new grassroots women’s and girls’ football sessions for 14 – 25 year olds with professional clubs across the country delivering the new Women and Girls programme. Swindon Town Football in the Community Trust have set up new sessions at various locations in Swindon to target a range of Women and Girls aged 14 – 24. We have set up the following sessions at; 

• Dorcan School — Upper years
• Warneford School — Upper years
• Commonweal School — Whole School
• Womens STFC Reserves
• Kingsdown — U16’s
• Dorcan Academy / Covingham Development

It is hoped that programme will help drive participation figures for women’s football and enable the sport to become the second largest team sport in the country behind men’s football. STFC Trust Manager Jon Holloway said: ‘ This is a great opportunity to enable more women and girls to be professionally coached and hopefully lead to more females playing the game on a regular basis. We know from our own successful Girl’s Development programme that there is a huge interest in girls playing football and this new initiative will help strengthen that further.’ The FA’s General Secretary, Alex Horne, said of the announcement: ​“This is a fantastic initiative which sees The FA, Premier League, Football League and Sport England all working together to promote and grow the women’s game, the first time we have collaborated on developing a grassroots programme for the sport. ​“The professional clubs’ brands will attract more players and we know that qualified coaches will deliver top class coaching sessions just where we need them. It’s also a further step for us to try and deliver on the objectives we have set our ourselves over the next five years in delivering the Game Changer strategy.” Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore, also said: ​“The aim of this programme is to increase participation in women and girls’ football, and Premier League clubs are in a unique position to do that. Not only can they attract participants through the power of the badge, but critically, they can deliver a quality coaching experience. Clubs will be able to build on the success of Premier League 4 Sport, which was a trailblazer for Sport England’s satellite club strategy, to get more individuals than ever playing our national game.” Mike Evans, General Manager of The Football League Trust added: ​“We are delighted to be working in partnership with The FA and Sport England on female football development. A large number of our 72 trusts already deliver women’s and girls’ football to a very high standard, but this additional funding will allow more trusts to get involved, and allow us to service the demand that we know is out there to get more females into the game.” A total of 88 clubs trusts across the country will deliver the sessions through Level 2 qualified coaches with each club delivering programmes and working in tandem with County FA’s, Schools, Colleges and Universities to engage new participants into the game.