TALENTED girls across Helensburgh and Lomond have shown off their football skills at a special festival to promote the beautiful game.
LiveArgyll Active Schools and Football Development have been supporting local primary schools and Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh to establish and promote the growth of girls’ football and its opportunities.
A number of schools now have lunchtime or after-school football clubs for girls and Hermitage Academy has had recent success with around 30 pupils taking part in school tournaments including the SPAR Cup Regional finals at Toryglen Regional Performance Centre in Glasgow.
A recent extracurricular sports club sign-up for the secondary school saw around 30 new S1 girls join for training and the after-school football club led by staff members and sports leaders.
Ardencaple FC has also been proactive in growing girls' football and now has healthy numbers attending their weekly training sessions with teams now participating in girls' football leagues.
Euan Birss from Ardencaple FC said: "The club are keen to continue to progress girls football development and further build on our strong partnership with liveArgyll Active Schools as we seek to increase the number of girls playing football at the local schools.
"This, in turn, will hopefully lead to more girls joining Ardencaple through the school-to-community club links developed and increase the number of teams we can enter into girls' leagues further increasing participation numbers”.
And a festival of football was organised for girls attending local primary schools in the Helensburgh and Lomond area.
The event saw more than 70 girls participate from a number of primary schools with lots of football played in warm conditions.
LiveArgyll Active Schools and Ardencaple FC again supported the committee from Helensburgh Christian Aid to raise more funds for worthy causes on the night.
The event, which was played as a more developmental festival to allow maximum participation, will hopefully continue to grow and become a recognised annual event, taking place at a similar time of year.
The ‘Martha Murdoch Memorial Trophy’, awarded for fair play and effort, went to Rosneath Primary.
The Player of the Tournament was awarded to Amy McAlpine who played to a consistently high standard throughout her matches for her team.
Martin Caldwell, LiveArgyll Active Schools coordinator, said: “Thanks must go to all the school staff and volunteers that give their time freely to enable events like this to take place and who run the clubs for pupils at their schools”.
Ardencaple FC girl’s squads welcome any new players born between 2009 and 2015 to attend their training nights and help grow the game further.
For more information email ardencaplegirlsfootball@hotmail.com.
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