#COYD - Come on You Dockers

  Newhaven Ladies 0 Fulham FC Women 5, Women’s FA Cup Second Qualifying Round It’s not often that we get to welcome three-times FA Cup winners to Fort Road. Yet that’s the fate that befell Newhaven Ladies this afternoon, as they hosted Fulham in the Second Qualifying Round of the Women’s FA Cup. While the modern-day Fulham team may be a world-away from that of the early noughties (the team responsible for two of those aforementioned FA Cup wins), they still play a division higher than the Dockers and were always going to present a considerable challenge for Andy Cook’s still relatively inexperienced team. Still Newhaven took to the pitch with dreams of an FA Cup giant-killing no doubt filling their heads. Fulham, unfortunately, had other ideas. Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say you were beaten by a better team. Today was one of those days for Newhaven Ladies. From practically the first minute, Fulham looked a class apart, confidently knocking the bal...

It’s no great secret that women’s football is currently thriving in the UK. The Lionesses European Championship victory over the summer has brought the sport into the mainstream spotlight in a way that’s never been seen before in this country. The early weeks of the new Women’s Super League season has witnessed increased crowds – over 47,000 attended the North London derby this past weekend – while Sky Sports and the BBC are currently giving far more airtime to women’s football than ever before. But it’s not just at the highest echelons of the game where women’s football is becoming increasingly popular. At grassroots level the game is enjoying a resurgence, too. From girls’ football to non-league, to development squads, more and more women are playing (and watching) football with each passing week.   One only needs to look at the FA Cup to see just how much the game has grown in a relatively short period. When the competition was launched back in 1970, just 71 teams ente...