We are excited to announce the next step forward for our club development, with now forwarding our intent to start three competitive girl’s sides to represent the club, from 2021/22.
Because of COVID in the last year, this has slowed and stuttered the development of our programmes, hindering more of an opportunity to form the outlet for the Girls football sector of the club.
Despite the delays, we have been encouraged by the great attendance and the potential built in our training sessions as well as the enthusiasm of the young girls in their learning processes.
First off, our ‘Wildcats’ will remain our FA Girls Centre for fun and participation, with a view to have the option to progress to the Girl’s U10 side that will become of formation into the 21/22 season.
Our new U10’s and U12’s sides would take part in the Cambridgeshire County Girls Leagues, as they start the path of league and cup competition for the first time under the Ely City Crusaders badge.
We are also in the process of using our Girls Development age group (12-14’s), to form the U14 squad for the season 2021/22. This will become a part of our ‘Advanced Girls Development’ with the future of this side looking to create our first ‘Elite’ competitive Women’s team.
The first season will be made into a friendly ‘league’, challenging other Development teams in the local area, as well as established academies to introduce us to the 9v9 and 11v11 competitive games throughout our first year of formation.
With these new steps of the club, we are looking to expand the Girls Development, from Wildcats to an Elite Development, by increasing our coaching and volunteer capacity.
The Programme and club are giving more opportunities to our coaching staff, new volunteers and most importantly- the community.
Ely City Crusaders is a community hub for football, which provides a wide range of ages and now focussing on the Girls/Ladies sides as part of our 5-year plan, in our ‘Offer to All’ motto we lead by.
We would be delighted to see more girls and women come forward from our community and join this journey, adding to the foundations of our project that will develop and strengthen the Girls Development Programme for years to come!
Chris Gibson youth development co-ordinator said, “The Youth Development Coordination at Ely City Crusaders will for form a pathway to not only have participation and development of football, but a link to progress those young players to potentially be the next player to represent the club at youth and senior level and go on to become Ely City Senior players for their First Team.
This is where after forming the Wildcats programme under leadership of Adam Everett, we were able to build the nucleus from 20 players, to a year later over 55 plus of regular girls training. We want to now build on that platform with creation of the Girls Development sector, allowing us to hopefully one day offer the first Ely City Crusaders Women sides in the next 5 years.”
“This is my objective as Youth Development Officer and shared by our fantastic committee to not only offer female players, but chances for female representation through our club for coaches, administrators and officials.”
“Coming out of this pandemic, it’s our duty with our incredible coaching staff and participation of so many players, we build on grassroot football for all.” – Chris CJ Gibson, Ely City Crusaders Youth Development
Press release from Ely City Crusaders
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