Primary School Girl's Football Festival

19 March 2010

ENGLAND STAR IMPRESSED BY RICHMOND GIRLS

England and Chelsea footballer Siobhan Chamberlain was an interested spectator as she attended Richmond’s Competitive Edge Primary Schools Girls Football Festival in Teddington last week.

Friday’s tournament (19 March) at the NPL Sports Club saw around 230 girls aged between 9 and 11 from 23 primary schools taking part. It was also a talent-spotting day for the borough, with some of the team’s leading lights being asked to try out for Richmond’s girls’ football team for July’s Mini Games of the Balfour Beatty London Youth Games.

Siobhan Chamberlain played at the London Youth Games as a youngster, helping Wandsworth to victory in 1998. She has since gone on to the elite end of the women’s games, playing in goal for Chelsea and England.

She was in the England squad at the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2009 European Championships where England finished as runners-up. The 26 year old now hopes to represent her country at the 2011 World Cup and the 2012 Olympic Games.

Chamberlain said: It’s great to see events like this taking place. Girls’ football has changed massively from when I was young. When I was in Primary School I was told I couldn’t play in the team because I was a girl, even though the manager was a woman! Which, looking back, is a little hypocritical.

There was never any tournament like this for primary school girls. Now they have centre of excellence at each club from under 10s up to under 16s. I didn’t have that opportunity, so it is definitely moving in the right direction.”

Looking back on her own experiences of the London Youth Games, she said: A couple of players we were playing against in the other teams, we had something of a grudge against them, from playing with Fulham at under 14s. So it was good to get one over on them and have the opportunity to play against so many other boroughs and to be the champions of London was great.”

She also had some advice for young wannabe sports stars. She said: The London Youth Games is a great opportunity to take part in lots of sport, even those that you might not have necessarily thought about before. I tried gymnastics, trampoline and triathlon as well as football. It’s good to not focus on just one sport.

If you can try as many sports as possible, meet as many new friends and try different ideas as you can, then with will just get led into the sport that you are best at or most enjoy. The London Youth Games is very competitive, but also a lot of fun.”

Queen’s Primary School were the overall cup winners and East Sheen won the plate.

Cup Winners - Queens

Plate Winners - East Sheen