Here at Northumberland FA, we are passionate about providing female players with opportunities to play football in a safe and enjoyable environment, which is why we were delighted to hear that The FA is aiming to double female participation by 2020. We appreciate that this is an ambition target, but one that is achievable if we continue to provide women and girls with accessible football sessions across the county.

On that note, I am delighted to say that four new SSE Wildcats Girls’ Football Clubs have been set up at various venues in Northumberland. The sessions, which are aimed at girls between the ages of 5 and 11, will take place at Killingworth Young People’s Club FC, Newcastle East End FC, Newcastle United Training Centre and Goals Soccer Centre. For further information on each of these sessions, please click here.

Meanwhile, regular visitors to our website will have seen that our affiliation window for season 2017/18 will open on Tuesday 4 April 2017. In order for clubs to have access to the County FA’s footballing infrastructure, affiliation must be completed every season, and I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage people to click here and begin the affiliation process today.

Finally, in order to help us understand what grassroots referees in Northumberland need, we are urging Level 3-8 officials to complete our survey. This short survey will take no longer than 10 minutes to complete and all answers will remain anonymous. Please click here to complete the survey.

John

To keep up with our latest news via social media, please follow @NorthumFA on Twitter, or like Northumberland FA on Facebook.

You can also follow John personally on Twitter by connecting to the new NFA CEO account - @NFACEO