'It's been a long time coming' - Trailblazers Bellshill Athletic field first-ever women's football team during inaugural Friendship Cup

Bellshill Athletic created history last month by fielding the first-ever women's football team to represent the town during the inaugural Friendship Cup against St Cadocs.

Parents, relatives, friends and local councillors flocked to Rockburn Park in their numbers on Sunday 26th November to witness a momentous occasion as the North Lanarkshire club launched their Girls Academy.

Despite losing 4-1 to the visitors, the ground-breaking moment left chairman David Brown with an "overwhelming sense of pride". He told GlasgowWorld: "We felt it would be more advantageous to attract girls to the club by starting up a specific academy structure tailored to them and led by a strong female-dominated committee."

Councillors Pat Patton, Beth Baudo, Frank McNally and Anne McCrory were in attendance to offer their support, with the girls sporting a brand new yellow and black striped kit kindly sponsored by local entrepreneur Sonia Rashid of North Road Pharmacy.

Explaining the decision to set up Bellshill's Girls Academy, head coach Garry Clark said: "The blueprint we set out earlier this year was to grow a girls-only academy that will eventually become the same size as the boys academy which currently comprises 21 teams.

"This has been a long time coming. We had six girls join us initially but word quickly started getting around and the girls were inviting their friends along. Within about three months we grew those numbers to 20 and we've now got around 34 girls aged between seven and 12-years-old that we've split into two age groups. There is four ladies on the committee along with Colette Cummings (chairperson), Cheryl (treasurer) and the three male members are the coaches.

"I've been coaching for 15 years and when I was invited to take part in this new venture I jumped at the opportunity. The girls have brought a real enthusiasm to training. Some of the older girls haven't played a lot of football, so the younger ones have an advantage starting out for the first time.

"The older team played their first ever game under the Bellshill Athletic name at the Rockburn. Every year from now on to mark the occasion of the first-ever girls team, the Friendship Cup will be up for grabs. We've had a lot of support from the local community and the football club, who offered us the use of their social club on the day. We just wanted the girls to savour the occasion and enjoy it, no matter of the outcome or result.

"What I've noticed from interacting with others involved in growing the women's game compared to the men's game is how protective of the sport everyone is. There's a proper community spirit, a willingness from other coaches to see you succeed as a team. They're always willing to pass on their knowledge and they're deliberately setting out games based on ability against ability.

"For example Gary, who is in charge of St Cadocs girls, came up to judge us to ensure he didn't bring a team over that were going to dish out a hefty defeat and potentially turn certain girls off football all together. Women's football is getting a lot of attention and focus in Scotland just now, so we need to try and exploit that while we can.

"What we eventually hope to achieve is to build a ladies team. We could've gone out and recruited 15-25 year-olds but the vision was to start from the very beginning and to have the girls amalgamated into the club. I've been involved with the boys academy so I'm aware what the standard is and what the behaviour is like.

"The main objective for this group of girls is to develop them through from under 16s, under 18s, under 21s until we eventually get to the stage where we can get a full women's team for Bellshill. The girls are having a lot of fun, there's plenty of laughter and most importantly they come here because they want to. It's not because parents are pressuring them into coming, which you find can happen quite often in boys football.

"I believe these girls have got some longevity in them. I think they will be loyal to the club because of the platform we've provided for them. Their attention will be a lot better than the boys who often drop off at around 16-17. Many of them are already close friends, there's a good team spirit. If we're doing a skills session, practicing things like a drag-back etc, the girls who might struggle are being supported by others. They're all from different backgrounds and schools but they've formed friendships.

"They've also been inform that their team photo will be placed on the wall in the Bellshill social club to mark the first-ever women's team and I've been saying to them 'just imagine when your daughters are playing the game, you can take them into the clubhouse and show them a little piece of history. We're calling them all trailblazers and it's a joy to coach them.

"We've got parents who want to become more involved in coaching as well. Our lead sponsor has agreed to sponsor every new team that comes into the club. Next year, we'll get another batch of girls in. We've started advertising for this on social media and that instantly brought another five local girls along. The demand and appeal to be part of this is huge. We're not trying to oversell it. These girls evidently want to play football but just didn't have anywhere to play it. Now they've got that opportunity."