For anyone wanting to renew or buy a W3 season ticket, Mark Gaitskell has given me this link to use. You have to register with Abler.
These are the prices.
There will be an update to come on the investment opportunity.
The same way mens football of a similar level/standard.
i.e ticket sales, sponsorship inc individual player sponsorship, perimeter advertising, other advertising, stand/stadium naming rights if possible, ploughing any financial rewards for cup wins etc. back into the playing budget & last but probably not least owners dipping in their own pocket.
This is how our menâs team is run & funded other than the TV/solidarity payments we get.
in broader terms the more the public is exposed to the womenâs game the more popular it becomes, the higher the standards, the greater value it can achieve for broadcast rights and so on.
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Not sure if WWFC has yet shown enough interest in owning the Womenâs Team , either under this or the previous club ownership.
Hence itâs been left to the Foundation and Supporters Trust!
Strange its the day before the first game and this hasnât been shared anywhere official that I can find. Likewise the investment opportunity.
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Mark apologised for the season ticket delay and said they had some challenges to overcome. Investment potential remains but itâs a longer term focus for next season, it seems.
I am putting together some thoughts about the future of W3, will post shortly.
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I agree that the OG seems to currently have little interest in the womenâs team, I think if they continue their success that will change albeit slowly. In the meantime the Trust & Foundation are doing a great job as is evidenced on the pitch.
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Thank you for the patience and support - somethings are coming out a little later than weâd have liked but hopefully the information/tickets etc people need are now available.
We as a club and players are always reading the thread here so any questions (within reason haha) please do ask.
Hope to see some of you tomorrow!
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The season ticket link has now been posted on Twitter, not yet on the Foundation site or wwfc.com as far as I can see.
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Got my season ticket. I try to get to all the home games. If anyone wants to go but needs a ride from Wycombe to Burnham, let me know and I will try to help.
Iâll be at the game tomorrow. If anyone wants to say hi, look for the guy with the strange looking white dog.
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See you there, I love a dog at a football match!
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A few thoughts on the future of W3 as the season is about to start. This may not be the first time the club has competed at tier 4, as we donât know enough about the clubâs or the womenâs pyramid history, but it does feel like a really big deal. It is a very timely promotion as I think the Southern Premier is going to be very competitive this season, with half the teams in with a good chance of winning. We know that the Foundation are very ambitious for the club and that promotions, plural, are the the aim, but there are a couple of things which could slow that progress, namely lack of finance and home ground location.
Finance - this is is probably the most pressing of the two. Going up every tier means an increase in costs. Last season the Maidenhead manager Dave Kitson reckoned that Moneyfields have one of the highest budgets in the SW division, and he intimated that Maidenheadâs is low enough to not be able to put players on contracts. He regretted that he could lose any of his players to the âseven day ruleâ, for no compensation. We have some insight into how much a successful tier 3 side costs when, according to âThe Athleticâ, Watford FC decided that the budget for their womenâs team, after winning promotion to WSL2 last season, would quadruple to about ÂŁ4 million because of minimum salary requirements for players. I have seen lower figures for Watfordâs budget last season, a long term supporter reckoned it was more like ÂŁ300,000-400,000. Whatever the figure, getting promotion to tier 3 and beyond costs a lot of money, Watford decided it was too much and have sold their womenâs team to US investment firm Pitch 15. Last season Plymouth Argyle, part of the main club, just missed out on promotion top WSL2, losing in a play-off. They then severely cut the budget, releasing most of the squad and, instead, adopted a policy of recruiting local players and living within their means. It will be interesting to see how they fare in the Southern Premier this season, hopefully they can prove you can be successful on a small budget. There does seem to be a trend of clubs cutting back on their womenâs team budget.
There are clubs at tier 4 who operate on very small budgets. Actonians are sometimes described as âamateurâ, just paying travel expenses, but they have more than held their own in the South East division the past four seasons. However, this summer, the McCaffrey Football Investment Group, who have been funding Leyton Orient Women, have invested significantly in Actonians, with the aim of promotion to tier 3 and beyond. Their first team are no longer âamateurâ but their other teams are.
As for W3, in the recent past they have been mostly funded by WW Supporters Trust, to the tune of ÂŁ20,000 last year. A good chunk of the budget will no doubt be for the hire of the 1878 Stadium. Before pledging money for this season the Trust are waiting for more details on the Foundationâs call for investment announced in May. The sums quoted appeared to value the club at ÂŁ500,000, which surprises me â I cannot see what the return is on that investment. Perhaps some big investors/benefactors are already lined up, which might explain this large valuation. The difference between the ÂŁ40,000 and ÂŁ40/ÂŁ15 investment per season offered is huge, something in between might have some takers. The quality of the new signings, including two players of the season from our close rivals, suggests to me that the playing budget has increased this season.
I feel that, because W3 play under the Wycombe Wanderers name, in the same colours, shining a good light on the name with recent success, then the main club should be contributing significantly to costs. There is no indication that they do, no sign that the Ownership Group have any interest in them, apart from the fact they they allow them a few games at Adams Park each season. That is appreciated and is very welcome but is that enough when you see the huge amounts being spent on the infrastructure and the menâs team? I have never felt that the Trust should be the main funder, that is not their role at the club. The Foundation, as a charity, cannot contribute the sums needed.
Ground location â Burnham FC is about 11 miles from Adams Park, half an hourâs drive away. That doesnât sound much but it is outside of the environs of High Wycombe and I think it puts people off going to watch games there. I think we have had more than one iteration of asking local clubs if they could host the Chairgirls. Holmer Green and Flackwell, certainly, and I think Penn & Tylers Green. All three have grass pitches, which inevitably suffer in the winter, and all three support at least three teams. Notably, each has a womenâs team so arranging matches on Sunday would be difficult, especially between different leagues. The advantage of Burnham is that the pitch is 3G and they have no womenâs team to compete with on Sunday. Equally important is that the players seem to like playing there and many of them are West London/Berkshire/Surrey based and it is easy to get to. It is the perfect sized stadium, well maintained with a good bar and kiosk. Another potential host is Beaconsfield Town, just under 10 miles away, and with a 3G pitch, but they have a womenâs team so, again, there is contention for the 2pm Sunday slot.
The home support at Burnham is measured in âtensâ, and most of those are family and friends. They did get 255 in the FA Cup there last season, when Bridgwater brough a few. When they play at Adams Park, they get 200-300 for FA Cup games but got a very encouraging 567 on a cold evening against Reading two a seasons ago. That game showed the potential for playing at Adams Park. All the womenâs teams around us play at the main club stadium, MK, Maidenhead, Chesham, Abingdon. Reading are going to be playing more games at the MadStad this season. All these grounds have grass pitches as well. I can understand why the OG want to protect the pitch but they have the financial resources and gear to keep it in top condition, whatever the weather. How many other clubs at our level have eight pitch lighting rigs? Are 11 league games plus a few more cup games really going to damage the pitch? I would like to think that the Chairgirls can play at least five games this season at Adams Park, if they want to. There will always be a need for another stadium like Burnham, for the two youth teams, but they may be able to play at Farnham Park once built.
Another potential local ground could be Marlow Road but it does not have a âstadiumâ to meet tier 4 ground grading, it is not owned by the club and appears to have a limited planning application life before they decamp to Farnham Park, taking all the buildings with them. The plans for Farnham Park do not include a âstadiumâ but womenâs Tier 4 only needs 200 covered accommodation, of which 100 is seated, Tier 3 needs 300/150. For now Burnham seems like the best option but it may be that Farnham Park ends up as their long term home. That is fine for the youth teams but, to grow their support, the first team need to play in High Wycombe.
The other thing W3 have to work on is attracting dedicated supporters and not relying on those from the menâs team. Supporting two teams is very time consuming, and when they are both at home on the same weekend, there is little time for anything thing else, especially for those who live further away. Where are the family groups with young girls? Where are the pathway players on Sunday afternoon?
One other thing the club really need to do is get a good Media Officer/Manager, who can look after social media, compile match reports and conduct interviews with the players and coaches. Currently the players, principally the captain I think, look after the socials, with a player on the bench posting match updates. They do a really good job but they shouldnât have to do it, not at Tier 4 semi-pro level. Two seasons ago we enjoyed Darcieâs regular W3 interviews but those interviews are few and far between, now that she works for WWFC. W3 are some way behind other clubs on the media side. When Bridgwater came, they brought someone tapping away on a laptop with match updates, and another going around the ground, capturing the day on video. One of my big grumbles is that the youth teams get virtually no publicity. I appreciate the need to keep the glare of publicity off them, at their young age, but notice of fixtures, venue and results is completely lacking at present.
Enough of the off-pitch stuff, tomorrow is the start of an exciting new era! Going into the summer I have been apprehensive about this season, with the big jump up in playing standards. There will be no easy games like last season when we had eight league wins by five or more goals, although it was the brilliance of the team which made them easy. Now that we have made a whole bunch of quality signings, and have retained every main player, I am feeling much more confident and really looking forward to the season.
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Really interesting. Thanks for working on this Steve.
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These are yesterdayâs results. No real surprises, Bournemouth and Keynsham were the bottom two teams above relegation last season. Bristol Rovers and Bridgwater were fourth and third respectively last season. Moneyfields lived up to their reputation as favourites this season. With all their changes in the summer, coach and playing staff, Ascot appear to have a lot of work to do.
The new FAWNL website is only showing one result and the league table shows Maidenhead and Moneyfields as having played each other twice yesterday.
Jess Watkins has set herself a target of 15 goal contributions this season, she had a target of 30 goals last season and came close with 26
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Some chairgirls popping up in new season of Ted Lasso according to chairgirls instragram (havenât watched the new series).
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Iâve spotted Kayla and Axelle (c). Who else have I missed?
Thatâs all I can see. Iâve never seen Ted Lasso, donât have Apple TV, what am I missing?
Iâm the same but I have a lot of good friends addicted to it and tell me itâs really good.