“Everyone should be connected. The sport is for everyone” Cheltenham Town Women’s manager Tom Davies on inclusivity of football

Cheltenham Town Women’s manager Tom Davies expressed his gratitude for the recent coverage of the women’s football, such as the last Euros, but believes there is more to club than it’s coverage.

“I think it’s similar to how we approach it at Cheltenham, but it’s got to be sustainable. What we don’t want now is to start overreaching and putting ourselves into situations where, if things don’t continue to evolve in the same way, that its not sustainable and we lose teams, or teams get into debt, or have to be reliant on handouts.

The whole point is we want to develop the game to where it should be at. It’s exciting that its improving.”

According to the Future Learn website, FIFA published a report dated 9 October 2018 and titled it, “Women’s Football Strategy”, initiating a strategy for the growth of women’s football with the aim of communicating and marketing the game more effectively.

Davies stance on the sport as a whole and its inclusivity resides with putting emphasis on allowing a pathway for people from top to bottom, but to do so for everybody involved.

“As a team in the Women’s National League structure, I feel that we’re getting the exposure. I think long term, most teams now are evolving into one club, and you’re finding that less clubs are separate.

If you’re wearing the same badge, just as you do with the academy teams and community teams, everybody should be connected and every club should be a whole club because the sport is for everyone, not just for men, for women, for boys or girls, it about every single person in every way – and I think that’s more important.”

FIFA seeks to double the number of female players by 2026 to 60 million, raise the standards of women’s football clubs and leagues across all member associations, and double the number of member associations that have organised youth leagues by 2026.

In the same vein, despite the size, Davies has taken matters into his own hands by ensuring him and his team act as the type of role models that can help improve the area of Cheltenham as a whole.

“We want to make sure we’re practising what we preach within a smaller environment, and we connect into a bigger and more effective club.

We’ve reached out to brownies, to girl guides, to ask to come to games for free. We want to create connections where those girls and women’s clubs have the ability to promote each other. They’re not even involved in football themselves, but the fact we can build them up and give them opportunities to access it for free and talk to different people, that’s exactly what we want.

We want to build our club’s outreach. We want to be THAT place that everyone feels comfortable to go to.”