To celebrate the occasion and to support this year’s theme, #PressforProgress, we invited 22 local young women to share their ideas as to how we can improve the number of females involved in the game.
The girls, aged 16-18 and students of the BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Sport with City in the Community, also had the opportunity to enjoy network and mentoring with staff from across the Club.
Kicking off with a network event, the youngsters met staff from the Communications, HR, Business Analysis, City Football Foundation and Research and Insights teams as they learnt about the range of prospects that exist within football.
Over lunch there was a chance to hear from Lou Cordwell OBE, the CEO of Manchester digital agency, magneticNorth.
Having received her OBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to the creative and digital economy, Lou shared her journey and experience of being at the forefront of Manchester’s emerging digital and innovation industry for over 20 years.
Armed with insight, the girls split into groups alongside staff to generate fun and engaging ideas to help tackle the barriers to female participation in football.
City in the Community worked with 10,832 females across their sport programmes during the 2016/17 season but only 10.5% were over 16.
As a Club we continue to explore ways in which we can make it sustainable for these participants to remain involved in the game and were delighted to see our young students come up with a host of concepts.
With a meet and greet with the women’s first team up for grabs, the winning idea was one which explored ways to promote grassroots coaching pathways and player development.
As part of the Club’s celebrations, we also hosted a Women at the Game event before our Champions League game against FC Basel, which encouraged female supporters to meet new and current fans, while the women’s first team also acknowledged the importance of the day by revealing their dream five-a-side team.
With a slight twist on the norm, Nadia Nadim, Karen Bardsley, Nikita Parris, and Tessel Middag were able to pick any women that they considered role models, whether they are footballers or not.
