Everyone at the club is pleased to welcome you all back to Champion Hill for the first home league game of the season and we hope you have a great day with us.

The team got their campaign underway away at newly-promoted Dartford last week and left with honours even after a cagey affair so we’ll be looking to go one better against the other team promoted from the LSERWFL last season, Saltdean United. 

We’re looking forward to a better season in the FAWNL and I think the league is shaping up to be one of those where anyone is capable of beating anyone. We showed we were capable of competing with the top sides last season but we lacked consistency, only managing back-to-back wins on one occasion, strong results were routinely followed by a disappointing one so that’s what we need to focus on as putting a good run together is what differentiating the teams at the top and in a tight league it will be even more important this time around. 

With finance and funding dominating women’s football for all the wrong reasons in the past few months we are once again increasing the budget for the women’s team and underlining our commitment to both the women’s game and to a sustainable approach. We’ve read numerous stories of clubs shuttering their women’s teams or slashing funding and I believe there are two main causes, firstly, those clubs were already operating too far beyond their means and secondly the expectations to compete with clubs who have accepted outside funding with a few to spending their way up the pyramid. There are many people who see that funding as an investment but we can’t ignore the fact that most of the clubs who are now pulling back from the women’s game have done so because that funding model proved unsustainable. 

Our commitment to developing the women’s teams further must though be done without Brit Saylor who announced she will be stepping down as a director of the club during the close season. Brit has done a fantastic job helping us meet the demanding requirements of participating in the FAWNL and I hope we can do her work justice by building on that to not just participate but compete. We wish Brit all the best for the future and in particular hope she enjoys a return to playing the game she loves.