Women's World Cup: Club looks for new home to build on Lioness success
- Published
East Goscote United is struggling to keep up with demand as women's football becomes more popular
A girls football club in Leicestershire is looking for a new home as it seeks to build on a surge of success inspired by England's women's team.
East Goscote United, based near Syston, said the increase in interest meant some of its age-range teams were full and could not take on new players.
They hope finding new facilities will allow them to carry on expanding.
Sunday will see England's women take on Spain after qualifying for their first ever World Cup final.
Darren Foster said the club was looking to have a stable base
Since England won the Women's European Championship with an extra-time victory over Germany at Wembley last year East Goscote said it had doubled its membership numbers, now topping more than 180 players.
On Thursday the club, which was founded 11 years ago, held a training session at Wreake Valley Academy, where excitement was building ahead of Sunday's match.
Darren Foster, club chairman, said the club was using local school and council grounds to keep girls playing football, but needed a new home to keep up with demand.
"The biggest challenge is that there's a lot of competition, and what we need is our own facilities and our own land," he said.
"It would be amazing to have all our club in one place."
Captain Lauren Farrow said girls now have their own footballing heroes to look up to
Lauren Farrow, senior team captain, said the club hoped to build on the Lionesses' successes.
"Their success in this World Cup so far has been phenomenal, and the amount of girls it's going to bring towards football is going to increase massively because girls are going to see that other girls can play football and they can get involved," she said.
"There's nothing to be scared about, and they've got role models now - 'other girls have done it so I can do it'.
"Millie Bright, Lucy Bronze, they can all look up to them nowadays rather than just looking up to men's football."
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