Football Hits the Spot with the Girls
Football is becoming increasingly popular with girls of all ages at Longhill High, as seen recently when PE staff took a group of 25 girls from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 to watch the Women’s FA Cup Final at Wembley. Longhill staff took the girls in the school minibuses and the only expense for the girls was £3 per head towards parking – a small price to pay for a great day out!
The match, between Arsenel and Chelsea, was an exciting one, resulting in a 3-1 victory to Chelsea. The Longhill High girls were fairly evenly split in their support, so at least half were pleased with the result and all of them agreed that it was a fantastic day!
Maia Darling and Isabel Clark-Lovell, from Year 7 gave us this account:
“We left school at 2pm and it took us about two and a half hours to get here. Then we arrived at the game and it was so amazing, the stadium was absolutely ginormous! Everyone was cheering and getting very excited. Chelsea scored the first goal and all the Chelsea fans started going crazy! At half time we all went to get food, drinks and merchandise. The final score was 3-1 to Chelsea. After the game we all went back to the mini bus and went back to school, we didn’t get back till 10:30.
We just wanted to thank you, Miss Egner, for organising this amazing trip and putting up with us for 8 hours. It was an amazing day, thank you everyone for taking us.”
Science teacher Miss Egner, who has run the girls’ football team for the past 3 years, has encouraged lots of girls to have a go at playing football themselves and many of them now attend training on a Thursday after school. An added bonus is that coaching on Thursdays is provided by Naomi, who plays for Brighton & Hove Albion.
Year 8 student Nasibah told us, “I’ve been playing for 2 months. I like playing football, but couldn’t play it in my other country (Saudi Arabia).
I’ve been at Longhill since September and I really like school. I like all kind of sports – basketball, netball, football. Girls can’t play any at all in Saudi Arabia, although this may change next year. I’ve played in matches against Patcham and Stringer – we beat Patcham. I really enjoyed going to Wembley to watch the cup final and it made me think that maybe I might want to become a professional footballer one day.”