Since the 16th April 2015, the number of ladies who had joined the COGs and who had been coming for over a year was probably in the region of 30/40. As the time had passed, the technical skills of the ladies had improved and Marcus Doyle (COGs’ Head Coach) was always keen to promote the ladies as women who could now play football and not a group of “old girls” who had just been coming along for a laugh…..   With new ladies coming all the time (most who hadn’t played before) it was felt that they might feel a little uncomfortable if they joined a session where the ladies had had nearly 18 months’ more experience and coaching.  Therefore, it was decided that we needed to go back to basics for the newer ladies and that was when the a new session was started, which would be directed at beginners, just like the older COGs had participated in when they started.

Unfortunately, with changes in the body for funding the promotion of Women and Girls Football, Nicol Meredith (EFL Trust) was no longer involved with the Female Football Development programme and the funding and new body who would be running the projects was moved to the Premier League Girls Fund.   Amy Fazackerley managed to get 30 weeks of funding to set up the new session, which took place on a Wednesday evening and the new ladies would be encouraged to join the new Beginners’ session.   Again, new ladies turned up and the Wednesday session was just as popular as the original Thursday session!  It was great to see a new bunch of ladies learning to play football, just like the original COGs had done, previously.

The ladies soon gelled together and were playing against each other in a mini Weds. vs. Thurs. tournament, in December.

Christmas was a great excuse to get those hats out!