By Jill Stocks
Playing in the FA Cup is a dream for any footballer at any level. And this coming season, for the first time in their 105-year history, Horsforth St Margaret’s Football Club have a team playing in the prestigious competition.
Horsforth St Margarets Women’s Football Club first team are the first team from the club, mens or womens, to compete in the competition, having qualified with promotion at the end of last season.
Finishing second secured their promotion to the West Riding County Women’s Football League Premier Division, and with it qualification for the preliminary round of the FA Cup.
Claire Secker, from Horsforth St Margaret’s, told us: “It’s a historical year for Horsforth St Margaret’s as a club. This is the first time that anyone in the club regardless of gender has got into the FA Cup. So it’s a really exciting time for us as a club.”
Austin Greenwood is lead of women’s football at Horsforth St Margaret’s. He said: “To play in the women’s FA Cup you have to be in the top division of tier seven and that’s what we’ve just been promoted into this summer.
“The entry criteria is a lot stricter for the men’s side, we basically don’t have the facilities here to compete in the FA Cup on the men’s side.
“As a result this is the first time in 105 years Horsforth has had a team competing in the FA Cup. It’s really exciting.”
The draw for the FA Cup was made on Friday lunchtime and having been given a bye for the preliminary round St Margarets first FA Cup match will be in the first qualifying round, with matches to take place on Sunday, 6 September.
Fallon Longstaff, women’s first team captain, said they are looking forward to competing in the competition and also aiming for the top in the league: “We finished second last season (and got promoted) which was obviously very good but I think this season only one team normally gets promoted so our aim is from the start of the season just to try to go out and win every game. Get that title.
“The past two seasons we’ve just missed out and we’ve come second two years in a row so I know our aim now is definitely to try and win the league. That would get us promoted and put us into tier six which is the next step of women’s football.”
The first women’s team was formed in 2021 and has been promoted three times in four seasons. The first team are also looking for players who might be able to help them achieve success next season. Claire said: “We are looking for division one ready players and we have got a great support network for that. We’ve got qualified coaches, fantastic facilities, we have great sponsors, from Leeds Mind and Zarach.
“We’re just looking really to expand and make sure that we give not only the FA Cup our best shot but we finished second last year and we want to be first this year. We just really want to let people know what we’re about and if people are interested in finding out more then get in touch.”
As well as players the club is always is need of more sponsorship to ease the financial side of things at the club, as Austin told us: “We’re always looking for players to improve the first team to keep pushing us forward. If there’s a couple of extra players that we can add to the first team we’d always be on the look out for them.
“But also sponsorship. We are sponsored by Zarach and Leeds Mind and we’ve allowed them to put their logos on the front of our shirts at no cost to them to advertise their charities but we struggled all summer to find sponsors and we’ve had to self fund our kit.
“We’ve basically funded ourselves now for a few years because it’s really difficult when you’ve got as many teams as we have to find someone that’s willing to pay the kind of money that it costs to buy three kits.
“For one kit you’re probably looking at about £1,200 to £1,300 so we’ve just spent over £4,000 on playing kit for three teams. We’ve done that by raising money ourselves.
“Last year we did a walk. This summer we’ve run children’s galas at the club, we’ve done football cards, I ran a last person standing competition for the World Cup, and we’ve got some grant money coming in as well.
“It just makes it harder when you’re having to spend time just getting some money in so you’ve got a playing kit. That would be something we’d want, sponsors, just so that we don’t have to spend hours every summer raising money so we’ve got a kit.”
As well as the first team there is a second and third team at St Margarets, with many of them coming through the ranks at the club and continuing to be part of it as well as people from the local area and students from the local universities.
Claire said: “What’s great now is that we’re seeing girls that played in the junior teams coming up. Charlotte Lockwood, the first team goalkeeper, was one of the juniors, played in the junior leagues most of her life.”
Austin added: “It’s a mix of people. People that have left uni that have settled here. We’re trying to get a lot of the juniors through. The second and third teams most of those are kids that came through the junior ranks. Some of them are 20 now and started playing with us when they were eight.”
And as well as that there is also a women’s social team which Claire plays for and she told us more about it:
“We compete in a women’s league on Sunday evenings at different venues, it’s a nine a side league on a Sunday training on a Wednesday night at Boddington really welcoming environment, great place for people to get back to football having had how ever many years out, great bunch of women, great for socialising, great for fitness, and it’s better than going to the gym.”
“There’s a place for everybody within Horsforth St Margarets whether that be people who want to make a return to football after a few years out or people that really enjoyed playing it at university and want to come back to it.”
Fallon also had some words of inspiration for women of all ages looking to take up the sport: “The thing that we really go with at Horsforth is always believing in yourself, because we’ve got people that have come from all different backgrounds. We strive to have that belief that you can do it. We can get there.
“We might not be professional footballers and we’re probably not going to be at this age now! But if we believe in ourselves and we have the confidence to work as a team you can achieve whatever it is that you want to. Which is now what we’ve wanted to achieve.
“The aim was always to get promoted and the FA Cup and now we’ve achieved that.”
Horsforth St Margaret’s Football Club prides itself on inclusive community football. There are 126 teams at the club, of all ages and abilities, as well as weekly sessions for children and adults with additional needs or disabilities.
- For more information and to get involved visit their website.
Sponsored content
