SJR Worksop Ladies founded in 2015 as ‘Worksop Town Ladies’ through their affiliation with Worksop Town FC, however split in 2020 to come under the SJR Worksop banner. SYWF spoke to Chairman of the club, Andrew Guest to talk about all things SJR Worksop from the split with Town, last day title drama and future plans.
So Andrew, how did you first get involved with SJR?
“It was actually my dad who created the team all the way back in 1984. We started out as a men’s Sunday League team and stayed that way for 35 years. I took over control from my dad in 2015 and only in 2019 did we become Semi-Professional. As chairman of the club I oversee everything that goes on in both the men’s and women’s teams but I actually also had a spell managing the men’s first team in 2022!“
Prior to 2020, SJR Worksop Ladies were part of Worksop Town, so why did the split come about?
“So when the men’s team went semi-pro, someone from Worksop Town Ladies got in touch asking if there was any scope to come under our name.
“Obviously this was a little bit confusing so I asked why and they told me that the women’s side had gained several sponsors but the club had taken them off them and put the money into the men’s team instead.
“Then Worksop Town had a 3G pitch put down, and one of the reasons for getting those is the business side of it. You can rent them out ect, but it meant they started charging the women £350 a game.
“That was the nail in the coffin. It was like ‘we’re under your club, but you want to charge us £350 every game?‘
“So the team approached me and honestly I agreed basically to just give them a home to begin with. I told them to run within the ethos of the club and left them to it. They had their own bank account and did things their own way but I could see it was getting worse and worse.“
How So?
“I’m not going to mention the manager’s name because he’s a nice guy, but something I’ve found a lot in women’s football is that the dressing rooms can end up running the teams.
“They had a good side but finished mid-table a couple of times, had too many games with only 10 players and sometimes games without a keeper.
“There was a fair bit of miscommunication as well, messages weren’t getting put across and to top it all they weren’t bringing in any money. It got to a point where I said to him: ‘Look, it’s not working anymore, mate.’
“It was time for a change, so I put a guy called Lee Scott in charge. He’s one of the best coaches in our area but with any big change we knew on the field it would probably go backwards first before we could move forward and we did take an initial dip in league positions for a year.
“But while we were doing that, the social media side, the promotional side all went up. We got more money into them through sponsorships, so even though we were struggling more on the pitch, things were looking up.”
In the couple of years since the revamp, what have been the highlights?
“In the first year under Scott, we nearly got relegated but I think that the good feeling from staying up, built momentum. We then went on a big recruitment drive to get players in and signed about 11 or 12 players in that off-season. Even still, we went into the season managing expectations but the momentum just kept building.
“We had a young girl come in at 16 called Emily Myatt, who we knew was a good player but we probably didn’t realise just how good she was. She hit the ground running, scored a lot of goals and the team just rocketed up the league.
“We had a bit of a wobble around the Christmas period and I thought it was over, but then we won five of the next six including a huge win at Oughtibridge, our rivals for the league.
“It meant we went into the last day of the season knowing ‘win and we win the league’.
“The game was at home against Retford, our local rivals who could stay up with a win. It was a game we really should have won comfortably but it was a really tense affair. We took the lead after two minutes, and even though the equalised he came storming back to go 4-1 up. We really should have cruised off into the distance at that point but we let them back into the game just before half-time.
“In the second half we were a bag of nerves and they got another with fifteen to go to make it 4-3. It looked like we’d done enough to hang on but then they won a penalty out of nowhere in the last minute.
“As you can imagine we were all expecting the worst, but our keeper Olivia Walker produced a miracle to keep it out. We saw out the closing moments and remarkably the league was ours.
“I also have to mention our FA Cup run. We got to the final qualifying round which we’ve been nowhere near before and obviously off the back of that there was a lot of publicity and a good bit of money.“
Why do you think the club has experienced so much success in such a short period of time?
“Well when we look around at how other clubs are running, it seems to be that those with bigger names and mens sides actually neglect their women’s side.
“We operate in reverse as in our women are probably getting more than the men and deservedly so because they’re the highest ranking team and actually bring in more money to the club. We run on the philosophy, the more you bring in, the more you get back and when it comes to sponsorship and what they do for the club, it outweighs anything anyone else does.“
You said the team makes more money than the men’s side. So, how financially sustainable are the women’s team?
“At the beginning, they were probably costing us money if I’m honest because we weren’t getting enough people watching. We couldn’t charge either, whereas we can at the level we’re at.
“But there are obviously more costs the higher you go as well. We’re paying for three officials compared to just one last year.
“I’ll be honest they’ve become like little celebrities around our town because it’s never been done before and I think at first they were a little bit uncomfortable with it. It’s a lot easier to do these days with social media, and they’re becoming household names. People know who they all are and I do think that’s why we’re becoming a big draw because everyone can sort of see that we’re running it the right way.
“We tend to run as women’s teams, how most people run men’s teams in a lot of ways in how we deal with transfers, how we train them, the style of play etc. We found that there’s a lot of tiki-taka pretty football, but it’s not very effective.
“We do get accused of being direct sometimes, but that’s generally how the men’s game is played at lower levels and because a lot of us have been involved in the men’s side, we’ve converted it into the women’s and our girls have bought into it.
“We played Nottingham Trent a few weeks ago and their play looked nice but they never got anywhere with it. Then we played a little one-two bang bang into the channel and we’re in.“
So how do you measure success for the club?
“This year we had to be realistic. We won the league last year ahead of schedule if we’re honest with ourselves. So this year was all about just staying up and then going from there.
“Each year we measure it differently and I’ve even said that even if we had got relegated I don’t think we’d lose much momentum because there’s been no one at this level of football from around here for a long time, only your big clubs like Rotherham and Chesterfield.
“I don’t measure it by winning trophies and stuff like that. They’re just bonuses to me. I just want to see it look more professional. We’ve brought in strength and conditioning, I’ve looked at how all the other teams warm up and we’re doing it better than them, it just looks the part. I look at all those little things and all the little bits that stack up.
“Have we got it 100%? No, there’s still work to be done, but we sit down each season and discuss how we can make it better each year.“
What are the goals for the club going forward?
“First of all, improve the ground. We still haven’t got floodlights, so we want them to help us promote both the women’s and the men’s sides and it also opens up opportunities to run midweek under 21s teams for the men’s. It would also make training a lot easier for us because the facilities in our town are shocking and that does hold us back. I mean there’s not even one 3G pitch in Worksop.
Elsewhere of course we’ll keep trying to grow attendances but other than that, we’re in a good spot. The junior sessions are thriving. We’ve got 46 teams now and the junior chairman told me last night he thinks we’ll be at 55 next season.
The core of the club and the progression is there. The key thing now is keeping those men’s and women’s teams strong so all these kids have got somewhere to feed into.
“Obviously some extra financial backing would be nice! So if someone comes in with a load of money and I think they’re the right fit, obviously that’ll help.
“On the field, men’s wise, we want to try and get them to step six and the women, probably national league within the next five years. So it’s only one step up each for both teams really.
“The development team are doing well as well and look like winning the Sheffield second division. So again, we think that’ll help because it closes the gap between the two squads. At the minute, the gap’s probably a little bit too big so asking any of the girls to step up is probably too big of an ask. but obviously we’ve got a lot of young girls in that squad, so we’re trying to develop them, so they can make that step up.“
Any young women or girls that want to get involved in the club either as a fan or maybe even playing for the club? How can they get involved?
“It’s super easy!
“On a Friday evening at 6:00, we have a wild cat session that’s open to all girls from three years old to 11 years old.
We’ve jumped from five girls’ teams to seven now. And then obviously you’ve got the development where they can then jump into initially or if they’re good enough I mentioned Emily Myatt earlier, she was 16 and jumped straight in at first team level.
“But we understand that those players are quite rare and that’s why we set up the development team. There are plans to bring in, if we can get our own ground, an educational post 16 side of things and we’re going to do that for obviously girls and boys, but we’re working on that at the moment.
“So yeah, a lot is going on, but a lot of bridges to get over as well.“
SYWF also spoke to the club’s Captain, Charlotte Finch to discuss her and the clubs future, as well as Manager Lee Scott on his own footballing journey.
