Middlesbrough Women Football Club officially join Championship club

Mick Mulhern, who took Sunderland women from the fifth tier to the WSL and an FA Cup final, is the new Middlesbrough FC Women's manager

Middlesbrough Women have been officially affiliated to the Championship club.

The team has played independently of the main club since its start in 1976 but has now merged with the men's side.

Middlesbrough Women play in the fourth tier of the women's game, in National League Division One North, where they finished tenth last season.

Some home games will be at Riverside Stadium and the women will train alongside the men at Rockliffe Park.

Mick Mulhern, who took Sunderland Women from the fifth tier to the top flight and an FA Cup final in his 15 years at the club, has been appointed manager after several years scouting for the FA, and says Boro general manager Ben Fisher tempted him back into the women's game.

"It's the first time in years I've thought, 'This is worth coming back for,'" Mulhern told BBC Radio Tees.

"It's a massive job. In the old Football League terms, it's fourth division, so our aim is to get, in seven years, into the Super League. Anything before that isn't realistic, because in every potential promotion only one team goes up.

"The thing that brought me back was that Middlesbrough will be patient - they know it's a building process. Everyone else is doing the same thing, everyone is coming on board, so it's going to be tough."

Mulhern, who has helped guide the careers of top stars like Jill Scott, Steph Houghton, Lucy Bronze and Beth Mead, said that taking the women's team under the club banner was key in his decision to take the job.

"I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't at a club like Middlesbrough, who want to do it properly. It wouldn't be sustainable otherwise. You need that football club support.

"If you look at the Women's Super League, there's nobody in it that isn't associated with a football club, and that tells its own story."

Mulhern predicts the women's game will continue to grow following the success of the Lionesses in the European Championships, and said Middlesbrough can start to harness its local talent.

"You've seen Beth [Mead] and Jordan Nobbs, two Middlesbrough girls who didn't play for the club because there wasn't really a club for them then. The next Beth Mead and next Jordan Nobbs will have come from here."

The team's general manager Ben Fisher has been one of the main movers behind the affiliation. He said: "It's a dream. It's been ongoing for a while but with the World Cup coming up it's the perfect time to get involved.

"It gives girls the opportunity to pull on the red shirt. In the past they might have gone in the club shop and seen pictures of the players on the walls and, while they're their heroes, they couldn't aspire to be them. Now we could have Jess [Dawson] or Armani [Maxwell] in that club shop and the little girls can want to be like them, and have the platform to do that."