Five years ago today, Hackney Laces was born. Back then we had no idea what we were doing. I knew that my neighbourhood needed a football team for the high number of teenage girls that wanted to play. And I knew that I could find some space and rally together some friends to get involved. I didn’t know that we’d be inundated with players, or that more than 90% of our players wanted to be famous as their future aspiration.
Tag: women’s football
This London Girl Can
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.
Meet Hackney Laces
I’d like to introduce you to Hackney Laces, a group of fabulous young women I have the privilege of spending time with. Speaking of fabulous women, the super talented and painfully modest Zoe Quirk made this video for us. In her spare time she edited hours of footage to make this little video as an introduction to Hackney Laces.
Wanted: New Teammates
Football Clubs as Coops
The way football clubs are funded is broken. From the Premier League all the way down to grassroots clubs. Broken. And financially unsustainable. It’s not aspirational to have multi- millionaire’s pumping money into clubs, making players salaries extortionate amounts. What example does it set to young footballers? Be talented. Make £250,000 per week.
Grassroots clubs on the other hand rely heavily on grant funds, cash from local authorities, subs from players and fundraisers. I’ve lost count of the number of football fundraisers I’ve both attended and organised. Of course these type of events are fun, lovely and a great way to support teams, but hitting up friends and family for money and all the effort that goes into bake sales, pub quizzes and tournaments is massive and completely reliant on passionate people to organise . There has to be a better way.