Playing in a Sunday Boys League - a girls perspective

Fifteen-year-old Lucy West, who is in Year 10 at Highworth Warneford School, tells us why it's good for girls to take that leap and play against the boys when it comes to football.

As a girl, I've experienced many things through my football, whether it's a boys team or girls, many trips, tournaments, matches and finals. Football has played a massive part of my life and has done for a very long time.

I started off at the age of eight, where I embarked my new beginnings at a girls club. I was very successful with this club and had the opportunity to be the captain and show off my leadership role. Throughout my 3 years of this club, I had won many leagues and cup finals; this is where my passion begin in football.

However as I got older, I decided that it was time for a change. I had the opportunity to trial for the Swindon Centre of Excellence at the age of 12, where I was lucky enough to succeed and be invited to play for the club. At this time I had join another girls club in a league - which you were allowed to as Swindon Centre of Excellence was an academy and therefore wasn't in the same league as the other girls team.

A year went by in the new Swindon team, and I was having the time of my life playing against many top teams like Southampton, Northampton, Tottenham and others and also competing in tournaments around the world - Barcelona being one of them. But one thing that as academy players we were advised to do, was to join as a boys teams; this is not because the girls league isn't successful enough, it's because boys are known to quicker, stronger and more technical in football because the majority of boys have been playing football since they were 3, whereas girls usually start when they are older. This is when I decided that my time in girls league's were over, and my time in boys began to help benefit my girls academy.

In  2016 I joined my first boys team. They were a top team in the first division and were very successful. I found the matches were challenging, however when I played in my academy girls team, the hard work payed off. I was more able to be more stronger and faster than other girls, as it's what I had learn from boys teams, that they hadn't because they weren't playing in them. The boys in my team were always looking after me and making sure I was okay, but I felt that it was a girl. I also find that some boys tend to not be as physical with you, because they may be afraid of injuring you, but as a girl, I love being able to be physical, and it makes the experience even better in a boys team as you can be a lot more physical and stronger than if you were in a girls.

In the middle of 2017, near the end of my season, my academy team had a tournament in Holland, which we had successfully won. However in the semi final, I had managed to roll over my ankle and have a grade 2 ankle ligament tear which led me to not being able to play football for about 8 months. I was devastated. It was a massive injury which to this day still effects me and how I play football.

My injury had resulted in many struggles when playing football such as loss of movement in my ankle, loss of speed, because my foot had to compensate for the restriction of movement, and also a mental problem- would I hurt my ankle again if I go into tackles or kick the ball as hard as I can?

But the main struggle I had was trying to keep up my speed, reaction time and movement with a top division boys team. The truth is it was really hard and I knew it. The boys had all been lovely, the manager's too, but division one boys football was too difficult for me to carry on.

The new season began near the end of 2017, and I came to the conclusion that it was time to find a new boys club, due to my struggle, but this time at a lower division. I found a boys club in division three. There was a vast change of ability from division one to three, but it was still challenging enough to help me with my academy team.

I had played some debut games with my boys club, to see whether I'd like it or not. I enjoyed it a lot. I continued going to training sessions, where I later on signed on for the boys team. Division three was a lot different compared to division one, but the main thing I liked about it was the standards weren't very high and so you were faced with a lot of fights and physicality- which is my favourite thing in football. Boys weren't as afraid to tackle a girl, and I was able to hold my own on various occasions. However you would get the occasional "Look it's a girl" from different boys team, but that never effected me.

As the season continued, my manager decided to make me captain of the team. I would of never thought a girl would of been chosen over all the boys in the team. But it made me extremely excited.

Every week I was putting in hard work which all led up to my big trip for my academy team, which was in Dallas in late March 2018. The hard work of boys football had payed off massively, as I had a successful tournament, which was against many top teams.

Boys football has helped massively to improve my game for my academy teams, as although girls football is improving every year, it still isn't successful as boys, and so as a girl I find that you learn a lot more from a boys team to help you in the long term.

I have had a lot of experience from my time of playing football in both girls and boys team, and have learnt much from both, but overall, I get a more exciting personal experience from boys football, and I will continue to carry on and play for a boys team next year.