East London Ladies football club celebrated International Women’s Day by hosting a mother daughter football match. The club, which was established 10 years ago, brought the senior ladies squad down to Mabley Green near Hackney Wick where they played against mothers of players from the U14, U10 and Little Dribbler teams.
Some mums played football for the first time.
Viv Jeffers, manager at the club for the last five years, said “it was amazing to see so many mums getting involved in a sport that their daughters are so passionate about. A lot of them had gone out and bought boots, they kept saying ‘Viv look at my amazing boots!’, it was really good to see.
“We thought it was really important to hold an event for International Women’s Day. The club is run entirely by women and we coach so many women and girls. We commemorate the day every year, this year we wanted to focus upon mums getting involved but last year we held a donation event.
“We held a celebration where attendees donated sanitary products for homeless women, the amount of donations we had was overwhelming. We donated them to shelters in the local area.
“This year’s focus worked so well. Some of the mums had not touched a football before and they found that it wasn’t as intense as they were expecting. Daughters were shouting at their mums from the sideline, suggesting things like ‘no mum that isn’t how you kick the ball’. What was amazing to see was the role reversal that took place. Mums were on the pitch getting stuck into the game and the Dads were settling their babies in pushchairs and cheering on their wives.”
Around 60 people attended the event with 20 mums getting involved.”The mums enjoyed it so much,” Jeffers added.
“So much so that we are adding a mums section to our annual tournament which is extra special this year as we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary as a club.”
Players at the club have grown in numbers recently due to the introduction of the Little Dribblers in November of last year. The Little Dribblers are a side for girls under five, Jeffers said that “we were receiving high demand from little sisters of our existing players. They wanted to give it a go. It started with just two little girls. It has expanded to six to eight a week, it isn’t a big team right now.
“Girls under 10 don’t compete with other clubs, it’s all about getting them interested in the game and add another level of socialising to their lives other than school.” Now every week the club coaches around 70-80 women and girls.
The senior players compete in the Greater London Women’s League and the U14s, girls aged between 11-13, compete in the Camden and Islington Youth League. The club are hosting their annual tournament on the 23 June and they are celebrating their 10 year anniversary on the 13 July.
Check out more sports events on Hackney Post sport section.
