Our Secretary Pete Muir reflects on our Girls program in 2017 and is excited to discuss the bigger plans for 2018.
In 2017 we entered Girls teams at Under 10, 11 and Under 13 with these teams being the first girls only teams at Toowong FC for nearly 25 years. A real milestone moment.
Reflecting on my 10 years involvement at the Club, starting as a senior player, parent, Committee member and now Secretary / Coach, I can honestly say that never before has there been such a buzz about engaging with any group of new players to get involved as there is about girls football at Toowong FC.
The improvement of last year’s girls teams over the season has given me great confidence that our implementation plan and coaching appointments are really working. So much so we expect a very high percentage of girls to return in 2018, where as in previous years the number of girls dropping out in the early teen years was much higher than those returning; largely as a result of the experience of playing with boys who are starting to become ever more physical. We expect that the returning girls will be joined by new girls of varying skill levels from beginners to more experienced players.
This is one of the key items critical to our overall plan; continuity of girl teams playing from Under 9 through to Under 16, then from there to our Senior teams. A Team for life. A Club for life. Community.
Quality coaching and engagement is the other equally critical item to ensuring we are successful. I like to think that we had a great coaching crew last season who concentrated on delivering fun, age appropriate sessions from the FFA Curriculum that the girls loved to be involved with.
I am therefore really pleased that our coaches from last year are all returning and we have already recruited a minimum of 2 coaches for each new team. All coaches will gain an appropriate community coaching qualification, mandated by the Club for 2018. Over 60% of the girls team coaches are also female, another development are we are proud to support.
It goes without saying that we are fully committed to increasing female participation, and more importantly retention, in football and through our positive actions we really hope to make the program bigger and better year on year.
In 2018 our aim is to field girls teams from Under 9 through to Under 14. This is a doubling of team numbers from 2017. In some age groups we may even field two teams.
I am proud to be the Secretary of the Club at this time and I am really committed to help the Club achieve our female participation targets for 2018 and beyond.