When Hackney Laces first began four years ago, I don’t think any of us – players, volunteers or coaches – expected for us to grow beyond Hackney. I know I didn’t. Now our sister club Limehouse Laces is taking Tower Hamlets by storm, attracting so many young women to the club and inspiring them along the way.
What you see in this video isn’t just a bunch of girls playing football. It’s a group of girls screaming at a camera (literally) about why playing is so important to them. It’s part of their identity, it’s a community to belong to and it’s something that has the ability to influence their future. Alice, one of the girls interviewed joined Hackney Laces as a player with no previous playing experience. She was then trained up as a coach and now she manages Limehouse Laces U15. In September she will be heading to America on a football scholarship. Alice is just one of the amazing young women we get to work with at Laces and I’m so immensely proud of the club and all of its members.