The club received the fantastic news late last week that following on from their regional league winning 2023/24 season, our U16 Junior Premier League (JPL) team have been promoted to the National Premier Conference (NPC) South for the 2024/25 season

This is great recognition for all of the hard work put in by Carl (Hymie) Holder, Stephen Hyde and the girls, which also saw them get to the JPL Warriors U15 National trophy final last season (see story below)

https://www.suffolkfa.com/news/2024/mar/12/afc-sudbury-girls-into-national-finals

Holder commented ‘It’s an incredible achievement from all past & present players over the 2 seasons since we formed and this represents a key objective achieved. Win, lose or draw the experiences will be brilliant. The clubs and venues are exciting but ultimately it will serve the girls well on the future pathway through into open age football’

Their first venture into the league starts on Saturday October 19th with a home game to AFC Bournemouth and is followed up with games against the likes of AFC Wimbledon , West Ham United, MK Dons & Watford

Assistant Academy Manager, Darren Scoulding said: ‘When we sat down and planned the creation of a true female pathway at the club, a high performing JPL team competing at a national level was an objective that we identified. This is against a backdrop of a growing female football landscape and with that comes increased local and regional competition from other clubs.’

‘I speak for everyone at the club on our excitement for this group to challenge themselves at this higher level. With a FAWNL 1st team, a thriving Academy of nearly 60 girls which enables 2 Academy weekend teams and JPL teams at U14, U15 and U16, our challenge is to continue to develop and nurture our youth players in environments that test them. The testament to this is that the matchday squad for the recent Women’s game v Norwich City contained 8 players who have come through the Academy pathway