Better scope for females

The  Sydney Hills Football Association has announced its plan for women’s football in 2016.

Girls from the Sydney Hills Football Association are gearing up for a big season.

The  Sydney Hills Football Association has announced its plan for women’s football in 2016.

SHFA president Craig Gough said the structure of female football next season was a result of consultation with ladies’ co-ordinators from various clubs, as well as feedback from players.

“We’ve had a number of female-only meetings to see what we can to do progress female football,” Gough said.

“And the last meeting we had was when we called all of the ladies’ co-ordinators together and we had a big discussion on how we can make it grow and what innovative things can we do to encourage people to stay and play in the association.”

The SHFA recently ­announced that women’s competitions will run in the U9, U11, U13, U15, U17, U21, O35, and all-age ladies’ groups.

Gough said the odd-number age groups would allow teams to stay together as they grow up through the ­association.

“Generally speaking (in football) there is U12, U14s and so on but one of the problems with ladies’ football is that you get a team together and you get some young ones together, the 11s and 12s, that stay behind,” he said.

“We’ve made it so that the teams can stick together.”

The association has also appointed a women’s football co-ordinator, Colin McGowan, to the executive committee.

Gough said the club would work to “provide a better competition” for women’s football.

“One of the accusations levelled at us was that we would be destroying women’s football and that was the last thing we wanted to do,” he said.

“We wanted to promote female football and develop it.”

Gough said the association hopes to have 1000 ­female players for the 2016 season.

“At this stage it looks like it is going to be a strong competition,” he said.

Gough said the association was focused on creating an environment that was “flexible and (as) easy for ladies to play female football as possible”.

“We’re going to play over-35s on a Friday night so that allows mums to play and then watch their kids on the weekend,” he said.

Junior girls can dual register for both the girls and mixed competition while only paying one registration fee, while O35s can do the same for the O35 and all-age ­ladies’ competition.

Gough said affordable dual registrations would encourage girls to play more.

“It’s to encourage girls to play and also encourage them to do both, because it helps in their development,” he said.

Pre-season competition will start in March, and registrations for women and men’s football is now open.