A SEAT AT THE TABLE

The goal of this year’s International Women’s Day is to ‘Inspire Inclusion’.

Each year, International Women’s Day is an opportunity for Bloomsbury Football to highlight the work we’re doing to get over 1,500 girls in London on the pitch each week. It’s also a day to celebrate the girls and women in our community!

For the Bloomsbury Football team, inspiring inclusion means removing the financial barriers to play whilst tackling longer-held beliefs around the game. It means showing the girls in our community that they have a place on the pitch & that they belong in this game.

To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, we are launching ‘A Seat at the Table’ to underline the importance of women in coaching. We believe that supporting female coaches and normalising having more women in coaching will tackle stereotypes about football and women’s role in it. It will create a world in which more girls will feel confident enough to get on the pitch and experience the life-changing power of football.

It is no secret that football has traditionally been a male dominated space. Earlier this year, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes described the lack of women in coaching as ‘a massive issue’, adding that ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do to close that gap’. When we begin this work with young people, showing them coaches that are male and female, then we are creating a more inclusive future for the game.

With this campaign, Bloomsbury Football spotlights women coaching at the grassroots level, highlighting the importance of these individuals in creating real change within the industry. For our young female players, growing up with female coaches helps them better understand the many pathways available to them within football. Improved visibility of role models inspires greater confidence and helps our players believe that they can go on to coach. When girls see their female coaches taking a seat at the table, they believe that they can do so too.

‘A Seat at the Table’ celebrates the female coaches at Bloomsbury Football who are an inspiration to their players. This campaign focuses on three coaches in our community: Beth, Sasha and Morgan. By featuring these coaches, their diverse backgrounds and unique reasons for getting into coaching, the campaign acts as a visual celebration of the importance and power of women in football coaching. Through a series of portraits, group shots and videos, Beth, Sasha and Morgan’s stories and experiences are placed centre stage.

For this campaign, Bloomsbury Football partnered with the creative duo behind Momentum On, Martha Omasoro and Jade Keshia Gordon. During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, the pair teamed up to capture the joy, excitement and anticipation that surrounded the tournament. Since then, they have continued to celebrate the women’s game and have used their work to highlight the need for more representation within the sport. As Jade explains, their goal is to ‘inspire women of all ages and races that they too can be on the pitch’.

This March, Bloomsbury Football will be sharing the portraits and interviews of Beth, Sasha and Morgan on our social media channels, and our website. On our site, you can learn more about our mission to use the power of football to improve mental and physical wellbeing, foster community cohesion and teach life skills to give young people the best chance of succeeding in life.

Watch the video on our Instagram.

To learn more about Momentum On, check out their page on Instagram.