Womens Football

Womens Football

The development of womens football is left mainly up to college sports. The games played during the school week with only half an hour each way and most finishing in poor light. 

They can still play for club sides on the weekend as well though

In Wellington there are four divisions of womens football played on Sundays.  In the week the Sport Wellington College leagues have a large number of college teams playing.Wellington based college teams have had some success at national competitions.  At Mana College we have two girls teams against one boys team.

Junior football has a large number of girls playing especially in grades 6 to 10.  My daughters Stop Out team in 12 grade has more girls than boys in it.

The Central League womens teams are well supported by the clubs and well promoted.  So I dont think things are all gloomy.

Yes it is great to see the girls in the lower grades on Saturdays but where do they go, at about 13yrs the boys look on girls playing as inferior and do not pass them the ball even when free. This becomes frustrating and they drop out. It takes an exceptional girl to keep the boys envolving them in the game.  

One thing I've alawys wondered about the NZ Domestic Womens Football League, is why the hell they have such stupid names. I  can understand Mainland Football and Capital Soccer and I suppose Soccer South, but what is with Soccer2, Force3, United Soccer 1.

Those names are in the process of being changed.

SOCCER: HB 'better' than score suggests

23.04.2007

CRAIG STEPHEN

At 3-nil down the players were told: "keep the heads up". At half-time there were more words of encouragement from the coach as the goals against tally totted up.

But what on earth can you tell a team when they've just lost 8-1? "You're better than that," was what coach Bob Morgan said to Team Hawke's Bay following their loss to Seatoun at Marewa Park, Napier, yesterday.

It was hard to disagree with him, at times. Sure that score looks unpleasant, embarrassing even, but Seatoun were a class act and you can't fault Bay's commitment.

However, eight goals against and one in favour also tells a few home truths as Morgan shared with SportToday.

"There was not enough team work and too much individual play. We gave them far too much space," he said.

"Our first touch wasn't effective and we put ourselves under pressure. The goal was a good individual effort and at times we played some good football. But we lacked consistency.

"It's a learning experience, and there is a lot we can take from that and build on."

So, what of the positives? Morgan was particularly impressed by leftback Jess Shepherd for her commitment and willingness to get stuck in.

Claudia Crasborne ran like a hare all day, although at times her final touch betrayed her or there were too many Seatoun players around her.

Morgan also felt the backs showed a lot of heart and made some good tackles despite the scoreline.

But the truth is that on this form few teams in the Central League would have been able to cope with Seatoun. They were fast, strong and had a lot of confidence on the ball.

They scored three times within 19 minutes and added two more before the interval.

Bay stemmed the flow a little in the second half but it wasn't until the 74th minute when they struck, Melissa Walton driving through before shooting into the corner of the net, that Bay got on the scoreline.

A handful of those goals could have been defended better and Bay goalkeeper Michelle Robinson appeared to have covered two shots that snuck in. She redeemed herself partially with a great save from close range in the second half and Amanda Hynes and Larissa Hamlin made brilliant tackles to prevent virtually certain goals.

Bay's woes were made worse when Gemma Baylis was unable to come out for the second half.

Morgan will now look at what went wrong and where to right it: There's a lot of work to be done.

* Team Hawke's Bay 1 (Melissa Walton, 74), Seatoun 8.

Blew2007-04-29 08:45:38

I watched Napier develop last year and they took a group of young players and developed a great team by mid season. The seatoun result is a harsh thing for young players but the experience they gained from playing mature, experienced older players can not be unestimated. 

Well another week spins by but Sunday brings a new round of the women's central League.(CSL)

I've coached lower-grade senior women's team that have comprised up to four mother/daughter combinations at a time.  Senior womens sides in the fourth or fifth division of e.g., Soccer 2, often have a great range of ages as well as personalities.  I've fielded a side in which the age range was 11-46.  And the 11 year old scored a goal on debut in the senior womens division!

Its good to see such sensible comments from Nightz and Antz.  I agree with what they have said.

I recently watched a Womens div 4 game between Lower Hutt and Petone which reflected exactly what Antz described.  The standard was social rather than elite and a wide range of ages from 14 to 40 were involved without much advantage to either end of the age range!

Actually, bugger!, we are bottom of the league.

Well the worst thing is the bye, the girls need to be out there playing. As you say the only way is up. Good luck for the rest of the season.  But they are still the top girls team in your league.Blew2007-05-09 19:48:08

My two new 17th grade recruits meant I had a line up of 12 players for the first time this season.  Great!

I'm not sure what is going on in Wellington or other parts of the country but down here in Christchurch girls and womens soccer (sorry football) is really taking off. Schools (who play mid week) and clubs have booming roles. Premier teams play on Saturdays and the other 3 divisions play on Sundays. Some of the better young players are playing in all three grades. While the increase in numbers has placed stress on clubs most of them have risen to the challenge and the quality of play is gradually increasing. One of the reasons for the improvement, in my opinion, has been keeping the school & club competitions separate. When I compare the number of girls playing now to when I first started playing 40 years ago (there were none) it makes me understand why the local netball association have started a campaign to counteract girls moving into football. There are no short cuts to success in managing this growth. Small steps - great results (and don't fix what ain't broken - sometimes you just have to let things run their course while providing a bit of guidance).

Yes netball is a problem, local all girls schools have a large number of netball (played Sat mornings) teams compared with football teams but we are winning here to. When heads of sport are heard to say that football is good for the girls with no ball skills it shows there focus. But the number playing mid week does impact on all the girls wishing to play on saturdays as homework and injuries impact, you can see why some drop weekend games as NCEA fear kicks in. 

Show 2007 Womens Rankings </> Rank Team +/-Rank:
Dec 06 Pts:
Mar 07 +/-Pts:
Dec 06 1 USA 1    2191 6 2 Germany -1    2179 -50 3 Norway 0    2069 -6 4 Sweden 0    2046 9 5 Korea DPR 0    2024 0 6 Denmark 2    2005 30 7 France 0    2002 11 8 Brazil -2    2000 0 9 Japan 2    1964 14 10 Canada 0    1962 0 11 China -2    1957 -13 12 England 0    1938 10 13 Italy 0    1918 -4 14 Australia 1    1899 10 15 Russia -1    1895 -8 16 Finland 0    1868 -3 17 Ukraine 0    1834 0 18 Netherlands 0    1830 6 19 Czech Republic 0    1803 0 20 Spain 0    1793 0
21 Iceland 0    1783 -6 22 Mexico 0    1749 -3 23 New Zealand 1    1744Blew2007-05-17 22:55:14

There are some good players coming through. Upper Hutt City's goalkeeper is one. I saw UHC play Seatoun weekend before last. She had a sound performance with TWO great saves included.

Wellington needs more than just the one offs, we need to challenge Auckland as the capital of womens football.

One offs?

So if we aren't even looking after the women and they are number 23 in the world why aren't the men any better nobody seems to look after them either.

There are good coaches and systems for support around.  This is in the end a small country and we don't have the funds the larger countries have.  One of the major needs that SPARC and the government need to address is the provision of top quality training facilities and support in the main centres that a variety of sports inc football can use.  This model works well when associated with major universities or polytechnics (see Oz).

My Sister is has just turn 15 and she is playing womens league in Palmerston North, She scored 7 on the weekend and runs rings around that 25+ women. Let the little ones play! Spesh when they are setting club goal scoring records at 15!

Well done to your sister. Manawatu has a strong young womens  development structure which has reaped good results.

Maybe the a-league could develop a womens league to play alongside the current one.  Double header games would be good.

Rumour has it NZ Football is to look at National Youth teams for both sex's in the future. Blew2007-05-26 14:50:13

Blew2007-05-31 21:46:50

Women's football in the last 15 years or so seems to have taken off, there are some really talented kids coming through the ranks and larger volumes of them it seems. Its great to see some all girls teams participating in the younger grades. There are also some great initiatives coming out of clubs eg Lower Hutt who are having a "girls only" day on a Sunday using the women's first team as coaches and having a mums v girls fun game. It seems that most girls never really get to see senior teams play, partly due to the fact they play on Sunday.

So Strong is Women's football in New Zealand that we have the 10th ranked team in NZ and I can not find a TV schedule to show the game.. Correct me if Im wrong but if the Czech Republic mens team rank 10th in the world was playing in Auckland the networks would be crawling over themselves to screen it. What happened is Canada here on a secret agenda.

Went to my first womens football match this afternoon. We lost 3-0 to Canada. Didn`t create much at all. Their keeper never made a save. One fairly stupid penalty given by Fox. Then when the Canadian put it away he made her re take it and she hit the corner of the crossbar and post. Good crowd about 4000. I just got in on kick off. There were about a couple of hundred people still outside when the game started. The smell made me think i was at the Body Shop. All in all a good time.

Great to here you took the time to go.  When you consider team probably only assembled on Friday the result is not that bad. Wedensday night should put a bit more pressure on Canada as NZ they will have trained together for 2 days.  $600.00 was to much for lights car rental for a days outing but did consider it.

Blew... you can do it much cheaper. 

One way rental from Wtn to Auckland on a relocation deal can be free, or as low as $20, then you can get flights for as low as $90 to fly back @06:30 the next morning.

Just need a mates floor to nap on.

Saw NZ womens vs Canada at North Harbour this afternoon too.

Sunday 10 June, 1.00pm

Well another great day,