Ness ‘overwhelmed’ by interest after joining women’s football revolution
NESS United has been “overwhelmed” with interest after becoming the third club in Shetland to start its own women’s football team.
The South Mainland side has joined Delting and Whitedale in formally starting a women’s team, with two training sessions being held already.
Lerwick Thistle could soon be set to join them too, with the town team seeking expressions of interest in a women’s football side.
Ness United’s Craig Leslie said women’s football was “booming at the moment” in Shetland – and that they had been stunned by the interest in the Ness team.
“We’ve been surprised by how many people wanted to get involved so soon,” he told Shetland News.
“We thought it would take a while to get going, but we had 30 people responding about it. There was a lot of interest immediately. It’s fantastic.”
Delting became the first club to start a women’s team late last year, before Whitedale followed suit in May. Both teams attracted large groups of women to training within weeks of getting started.
Craig Leslie said that a Ness women’s football team had been a long time coming.
“It’s been on the agenda for a few years, but we’ve just not had the coaches available to take it on.
“About eight weeks ago we discussed it again and everyone was completely for it, so on the back of that we put it on Facebook just to see what interest there was.
“We were overwhelmed by the interest really.”
Dion Leslie will coach the team, having played for Falkirk ladies’ when she was younger.
Initially Ness had planned for women’s training to start in the winter, but the huge early demand led them to decide to start immediately.
There were 12 ladies at the first session earlier this month, but Craig Leslie said it “wasn’t a great night of weather so they did well to come out”.
At Cunningsburgh last Thursday however there were 22 players, and Craig said they were “pleasantly surprised” by the turnout.
“We were absolutely delighted to have that amount of people coming already.
“Some of them are complete beginners but a lot of them had played for Ness at junior level, so it was good to see them coming back and joining in.
“We’ve had an age range of 15 to 37, and they’ve been really keen to have more sessions.”
Training has been “very basic so far”, Craig said, with an emphasis on ensuring players are “enjoying it and having fun”.
“The feedback has been great. It’s just about getting them back in to football and making sure everyone is having fun.”
Craig said they were keen to continue to grow Ness United across all of the age levels – from juniors to seniors – and the women’s team were a huge part of that.
The aim, he said, was to have “sons, daughters, mams and dads all playing for Ness at some level”.
He said the success of the Shetland girls’ and ladies’ teams were fuelling a huge increase in interest in the games, adding: “Women’s football is booming at the moment”.
The focus for Ness is solely on training just now, he stressed, with no plans to play any competitive action just yet.
“The lasses have been speaking about that already, but it’s maybe a bit early for that.
“At the moment they’re just learning the game, but they’re really enjoying it, which we’re really pleased about”.Craig said that Ness United is celebrating its 75th anniversary next year, with hopes that a ladies game could form part of the celebrations.
And with three women’s clubs now in training – and with a fourth potentially joining soon – the possibility of women’s football league appears to be moving closer to fruition.
“It does seem to be growing a bit of momentum,” Craig agreed.
“It’s good to see all the clubs getting behind it. It would be good to get a competitive edge to our training, when the time comes.”
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