Welcome to Since 71, this is a football blog created by Thom Stone and myself, Stuart Barker. Together we have over twenty five years experience of coaching football, initially in boys youth football but over the past four years we’ve moved into women’s football.
My introduction into women’s football came when coaching the Hampshire Constabulary Ladies football team, while Thom managed Southampton Saints Reserves. In July 2017 we joined forces and took over Winchester Flyers Reserves. After one season we decided that we wanted to set up our own club slightly closer to our hometown of Portsmouth. We have now established an under 13 girls football at Havant & Waterlooville and are really excited to watch the club grow.
We are both keen followers of women’s football and in the south coast we are blessed with a number of sides playing at a high level – Southampton Women, Portsmouth Women and Chichester City Ladies.
Enough about us, let’s talk about the blog… The name Since 71 was an idea of Thom’s, inspired by the year that the FA lifted the ban on women’s football.
With the increased coverage of women’s international football and the Women’s Super League in the national press we felt that the lower leagues deserved more exposure. We will not be ignoring football at the top level but we want to champion women’s football from the Championship down to Grassroots.
We are not looking to become a daily news source, we want to be a home for special features including interviews, player diaries, match previews and reviews and openly invite contributions from anyone with a shared love of the game. You may have a personal story that you’d like to share or you might just want to talk about the club that you support. If that’s the case then please do not hesitate to get in touch via hellosince71@gmail.com
We really appreciate all of your support!
Stu and Thom
Flyers Reserves vs Southampton Women’s Reserves[/image_with_text]
