Hull City Ladies Granted England Talent Pathway For Girls
Hull City Ladies are delighted to announce that they have been granted a three-year FA Emerging Talent Centre Licence!
Emerging Talent Centers (ETC) have replaced what was formerly known as Regional Talent Centers RTC. Hull City Ladies FC now have the opportunity to offer further high-quality training environments licensed by The FA. We are thrilled that Our ETC will be based in the Heart of Hull and will be able to focus on Under 9’s, U10’s and U11’s.
This means that local talent in Hull will have the opportunity to access this fabulous facility. This will provide an England pathway for those identified girls in our region. We have been waiting a long time for this opportunity and a lot of hard work and dedication has gone into securing this license.
Our aim is to ensure that all girls in our area regardless of circumstances can access the same opportunities as any player showing potential talent. RTC’s have been inaccessible for many in our region due to distance and players having to travel out of the city, placing significant financial strain on their families. We wanted to ensure that talent is not missed and we feel proud to be able to support young girls and their families to achieve their full potential. The ETC will cost 120 pounds per season – 30 weeks. We are also implementing a Hardship Policy for families who may need additional support in relation to affordability. This will be managed with sensitivity and confidentiality and we want to encourage families to come forward and access support if this is needed.
As many already know we also have our very successful Girls Elite Academy. We plan to continue to operate this for U12’s, U14’s and U16’s, as our vision still remains, to create a full pathway for young players to emerge and achieve their potential as rising future stars in Women’s Football. Last season, six players graduated from the Girls Elite Academy and went onto to play Senior Football for Hull City Ladies FC. We are proud to be able to offer this and will continue to work closely with the ETC and GEA track progress and develop our young girls. Keep your eyes peeled for our new signings!
Our new ETC will be based at Sirius West Academy. Here we aim to create a positive learning environment using the Long Term Player Development Model, looking at the four corners of developing players, technically, physically, socially, and psychologically. Identifying and engaging girls at the very early stages is key and we can instill that passion and drive they need to be successful. We have the resources and fantastic staff to create a wrap around approach to our delivery.
Hull City Ladies Managing Director Danny Johnson said:
“It’s fantastic to see Hull City Ladies being granted the license for an ETC. Last year we launched our Girls Elite Academy as we recognised there was so much talent in Hull and the surrounding areas, too many young players in our area have been unable to access previous RTC’s due to barriers such as travel and the pressure on working families to meet this cost, also being unable to continue to play for their grassroots clubs was something that deterred a lot of young players. Lots of our young girls have strong bonds and relationships with their grassroots teams and we wanted to continue to promote this and not disrupt this for them. We also want to continue to support our local grassroots clubs as a whole. Positive relationships with coaches and managers from these clubs across the city are key to ensuring that we identify talent.
We fully welcome and recognise the potential of working together with our local grassroots teams to ‘home grow’ our very own Football Stars. We hope to continue to work with as many of these clubs as possible to support one another, ultimately ensuring that the young girls get the best of both. We know for most young people friendships are hugely important and a big part of young players growing in confidence, developing socially and feeling happy overall. The ETC is a fantastic programme which promotes and follows the England Talent Pathway and what is really pleasing is that all the girls can continue to play for their grassroots clubs.
We now have a full pathway from U9’s to U16’s which will produce excellent players. I’m really looking forward to seeing players develop all the way through the ETC and the GEA onto playing for the Tigresses and potentially England. Hull City Ladies have a vision of becoming a Women’s Super League club in 10 years. With the fantastic backing of our sponsors, partners, grassroots teams, supporters, players, staff and volunteers, we continue to grow and be so very proud. We want to create a lasting legacy, to have ‘home grown players’ playing at the highest level possible and potentially for England, just like our very own Club Ambassador Carol Thomas, a legendary England player herself and who continues to fly the flag for women’s football in our area. We would like to thank everyone who has made this possible, this is something that the city has needed and is long overdue”.