How to encourage more girls into the game

At grassroots youth football, our job as coaches is largely about encouraging players into the game, thinking of initiatives to get them to enjoy sessions and want to turn up each week.

 

A while ago on social media, I asked ‘What is your team/club doing to encourage more girls into the game?’. With 46% of the votes, my poll finished with ‘school visits’ taking the crown, followed by ‘free sessions’ (35%), ‘campaigns’ (10%) and ‘other’ mopping up the remainder.

 

School visits are a huge part of getting girls’ football out there. Our Wildcats coaches/academy students often take trips into local primary schools to run taster sessions as not all schools offer sessions just for girls! I completely agree with mixed youth teams, but not all girls want to play with the boys – and because of that, they refuse to play all together. Sad right? 

 

Advertising

It’s all well and good advertising the fact you have girls’ football at your club, but little eight-year-old Emily who loves football is not on social media hasn’t got a clue. However, if you go into Emily’s school to run a session and hand out leaflets, she’ll go home and annoy her parents to take her to join the club.

 

Affordable fees also came up a handful of times – when you’re young, you can change what you’re into week to week depending on what your best friend is doing. I understand clubs must cover expenses and all that is put into consideration when agreeing fees, but making it too expensive will put off parents so maybe ‘pay and play’ is a more effective for younger players? 

 

Kit design

Of the ideas suggested, a personal favourite of mine is letting the girls loose on designing their own kit for the season. I know this isn’t possible for all – many clubs like all their teams to wear the same kit to create unity and equality. 

 

However, if you’re a standalone team starting a younger girls’ side, this is a fantastic way to get them involved off the pitch – giving them a sense of responsibility too! 

 

Equipment colours

Another response was considering the colours for footballs, bibs and equipment – brilliant. The standard bib colours are fairly dull… I think I have a deep red, royal blue and a deep green and an uninspiring yellow…

 

Investing in colours like bright pink, baby blues, bright greens, and shall we say… a sunflower yellow may be the answer. It’s proven that colours affect children’s moods, their behaviour, and performance. Colours send signals to the brain and it has the power to distract a child or enhance a child’s learning potential.

 

For instance, young children are attracted to warm, bright colours and pastels. Teenagers enjoy colours like greens and blues, while adults prefer darker colours like burgundy, grey, navy, dark green, and violet – apparently this is the reason my team have the ‘dull’ bibs. So maybe it’s worth making a conscious decision when purchasing your bibs next season. 

 

Consider phrasing

Quite a few responses said, we must use the term ‘open session’ rather than ‘trials’. I agree with this to some extent but I don’t think it works for all teams. 

 

I agree, the term ‘open sessions’ should be used for grassroots girls’ teams as it sounds more welcoming and that anyone can rock up and play! It should mean the team are willing to develop players who are still learning the game, or those who have never kicked a ball before! Also not many youth teams will turn down players, the more the merrier and it’s about getting young girls into the game whatever ability. 

 

However, not all teams are open for ‘anyone’ to try football – not because they’re being non-inclusive… but because they’re expecting a certain level of ability, I’d say this is more for older teams in higher leagues.

 

I think trials are for teams who have high ambitions and expectations. It’s to save the heartache of telling a player that they’re just not ready, and so the management team isn’t wasting their time.

 

 

Ultimately it comes down to considering your audience (coaches and players), meeting or managing their expectations, and finding ways to engage the players in front of you.