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Bloomsbury Football Foundation launches Her Game Needs You
Half of teenage girls who play football would tell their coach things they cannot tell their parents, new research finds, as Gabby Logan backs a drive to get more women coaching.
Bloomsbury Football Foundation launches Her Game Needs You, a campaign to recruit, develop and support women into coaching roles, after its own research finds most teenage girls would find it easier to confide in a woman coach
One in five UK teenagers has no trusted adult outside their family. For many of those who do, that adult is a sports coach who shows up for them every week and is neither a parent nor a teacher. New research published today reveals how much weight that relationship carries for teenage girls, and how rarely it is with a woman.
Half of the girls who play organised football say they would tell a woman coach something they could not tell a parent or guardian. For a male coach, the figure is just one in eight. More than half say they would find it easier to trust a woman, and to talk to her about difficult things. Yet only 7% of people coaching grassroots football in England are women.
Bloomsbury Football Foundation, which uses football to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing young people in London's most deprived areas, is launching a campaign today to close that gap. Her Game Needs You will recruit and develop the Foundation's first cohort of women into coaching roles, through a new Women's Coaching Pathway.
Broadcaster and Bloomsbury Football Foundation Brand Ambassador Gabby Logan, who is fronting the campaign, said: “Coaches can play a huge part in a young person's development: they can be role models, confidantes and mentors in their lives beyond sport. That's why it's so important that boys and girls both have access to coaches they can see themselves in. This campaign will get more women into coaching and, more importantly, give more girls access to identifiable role models to help them enjoy the magic of football.”
Charlie Hyman, Chief Executive of Bloomsbury Football Foundation, said: “One in five young people we surveyed don't have an adult they trust outside their family. Asked who they would turn to, a coach or a teacher came top. That is why Bloomsbury exists: to bring that adult to every young person. Young people also told us they look up to role models of their own gender. Yet only one in ten coaches are women. If we want many more girls playing, we need many more women coaching. That is what we are building. Our Women's Coaching Pathway gives women mentoring, paid coaching opportunities and a community behind them as they move into full-time coaching. Every woman who comes through it means more girls with a place to play, a trusted adult in their corner and the skills to succeed in life.”
The Foundation argues the shortage is not about the cost of getting qualified, which is already largely covered by bursaries for women. What is missing is what comes after the badge. Many women have the knowledge, experience and traits to be great community coaches, but lack the confidence, belief or opportunity to put themselves forward. That is why coaches on the pathway join as one cohort, are paid for their hours, mentored in small groups by women from the professional and semi-professional game, and given coaching qualifications where they need them, all with the aim of moving them into full-time and part-time roles at the Foundation. The Foundation is looking for women with a football background, however they came by it; a formal qualification is welcome, not required.
What is at stake is whether more girls play at all. Bloomsbury's research found that few things move teenage wellbeing the way football does: girls who play are dramatically happier, less anxious and less lonely than girls who do not, and sport is what teenagers say they want in their area ahead of anything else. Yet boys are three and a half times as likely as girls to play every week, and of the girls who do play, half are rarely or never coached by a woman.
The Foundation's own measure of success is whether more girls sign up to play in the areas where a new woman coach arrives. It plans to extend the model beyond London if it works.
Her Game Needs You launches at an event at the House of Lords tonight (30 September) hosted by Lord Finkelstein.
Applications to the Women's Coaching Pathway open the same day at www.bloomsburyfootball.com/womens-coaching-pathway
