It was a good game, the quality of maybe a men's first division game. Fulham won, they were the only professional women's team in the country at the time, packed with imports and internationals. As far as I know many of the Premiership clubs are investing in this area.

Mo Al-Fayed supports the ladies wholeheartedly, there is a link on the official club website. Most of the backroom staff are part-time apart from the management their coach is a guy called Gaute Haugenes, probably some ex Dutch or Belgian international. RI:SE TV presenter Kirsty Gallacher is the Honorary President. The 1st team play their home games at Woking FC's ground, I think the fact that they have a first team is remarkable. The club see a future in women's football and are treating it as an investment for the future.

“Participation by women and in the UK is at an all time high. The number of females playing football has increased 88% since 1999 and there are now 55,000 playing the game - that's only 2,000 less than the number of females playing netball, which is the number one female sport.” (Fulham FC website)

The Doncaster Belles are arguably England's most famous women's team, formed in 1969, they represented England in Holland for the European Championships in 1983 and have won the FA Cup on 6 occasions.

Aren't Doncaster a conference team in Men's Footy!!!!

There are 12 teams in the AXA FA Womens Premier League Southern Division and 12 in the Northern Division, and that's it for the moment. Wales is represented by three teams Bangor City (in the North) Barry Town and Merthyr Tydfil (in the South).

Even Cardiff City are pro-actively getting involved

“The Lebanese tycoon (Sam Hamman) wants the female side of The Bluebirds' operation to play at a new athletics stadium with a capacity of 2,000 if the men are able to move into the proposed development at Leckwith.” (Yahoo: Wednesday June 26, 03:18 PM)

Look, Cardiff City are already in a higher league than the Swans, they have more money than us and are looking to move to a new stadium sooner rather than later. Let's not be overtaken again. With such a large catchment area Swansea could attract some excellent football players, as we saw on Saturday, with the right support from both club and supporters (its our job) we could have a team in the top division to be proud of!

However the club need to take an active interest, and the only way that they will do this is by responding to pressure from us. Plain and simple if we can attract more people to watch football, we can sell more merchandise making us a better business, which essentially means survival!

I'm sure Mr Santore can tell us how big Women's Football is in the U.S. and if I'm not mistaken USA are one of the top teams in the World!!!! The U.S.!!!!

If Bangor, Barry, Doncaster, and Merthyr Tydfil (ferchrissakes) can have teams playing against Arsenal, Liverpool, Fulham and Man City then why can't we? As in men's football the bigger clubs will attract bigger gates. If City allow the ladies to play at the Vetch either after matches or when we are away, also allow the ladies use of the facilities (announcers booth etc), it will make us look very professional.

Big business for football clubs at the moment is corporate hospitality (prawn sandwich brigade I'm afraid), many corporations wish to be seen as supporters of equal opportunities, what better than to entertain clients at a Football Club who offer their women's team the same facilities (apart from the urinals in the changing rooms) as the men. The Vetch is not the best stadium in the world and we won't attract the top businesses because of it's facilities, but if we can get sound business ethics in place before the move to Morfa, it will lend well to a professional image.

Let's stop thinking of ourselves as a small fish, OK we may not be a “Sleeping Giant” like our gracious neighbours (sarcasm, honest), but we can be major players. Let's take a step back and look at the wider picture.

Come on the Swansea Pens (just a suggestion). If you didn't know a female swan is called a Pen!
All the Best

Lee

Below is a list of websites you may be interested in, which I used for reference

AXA FA Womens Premier League Southern Division
League table

Fulham's Ladies
Fulham's Ladies site worth looking at for inspiration

http://www.shekicks.net/
This is a website dedicated to womens football in England and Wales, don't be put off by the pay as you go thing. Newport and Bangor have websites dedicated to their women's teams

http://www.donny.co.uk/Belles/
Doncaster Belles website

If anyone has any feedback to give me, I'd love to hear from you at lee@scfc.co.uk