Last season our U-14s won the Cornwall FA Fair Play Award and our U-12s won the County Championship. Myself and Ian started up girls football in the town back in 2007 and before that I was coaching boys teams in Liskeard.

As a coach of a youth team, I always wonder what is the best date to start pre-season. As most youth leagues start in mid-September, you want at least a month’s worth of training and friendlies beforehand. However, the problem you have is due to summer holidays and getting hold of your players in August can be a nightmare. You also want to give your players a sizeable break from football so they come back fresh for next season.

This year, due to a delayed county final for our U-12s, our competitive season didn’t end until the end of May. Since then we have had summer tournaments across the county to keep us busy, so this year the girls are only going to get a month off from football before we come back. It feels like last season never ended and we are just continuing on.

The reason I bring up pre-season is because this has probably been an issue for many big ladies clubs due to the new Super League, with players who played in the Premier League finishing in April/May this year and now having to wait until next year for competitive football in the Super League to start up again for them. Once we have had the first season of the Super League it will all be like clock work but with this break of nearly a year from competitive football before the first season, I am sure it is causing many headaches for players, staff and clubs.

I wonder if the new Super League format of having a summer season turns out to be successful if it will be rolled out across other ladies leagues and then into girls football? I could see how having a summer season for girls football may sound more appealing to get girls into football, as in theory they should be playing in better weather and I could see the FA wanting to align everything in due course. My concern would be if they did this for girls football, that for the six or seven weeks schools are broken up, if you had league games you would never be sure from one week to the next which players you had available.