Another week of fun and fabulous futsal from the Bootham girls! ⚽️

A huge welcome to Zyla, Charlotte, Elora and Hailey-Jo, who have recently joined the club. Thank you for choosing to be part of our futsal family — we’re so excited to watch you develop, have fun and make plenty of memories on your futsal journey. We can’t wait to see those smiles on court! 😊

This week, we concentrated on how to use the court when the attacking team has an overload. One player from each team was restricted to the final third, meaning that when a team won the ball, they could potentially create a 4v3 overload in the rest of the court. Of course, that came with a risk! By committing players forward to make the most of the overload, they could leave themselves exposed to a quick counter-attack. That led to some really interesting decisions from the girls. Do they leave a player back to mark the higher player? Do they gamble and send everyone forward to exploit the 4v3? Or do they find another solution?Needless to say, we saw all of the above — and plenty of other ideas besides!

There was some fantastic play from so many of the girls, but what really stood out was the attitude across the group. They listened, experimented, made decisions, made mistakes, tried again and, most importantly, had fun. Lots of smiles on court and huge respect from all the coaches. ❤️ Another brilliant session from the Bootham girls. Keep smiling, keep learning and keep enjoying your futsal! ⚽️

A special mention this week goes to Eleanor, who has started her coaching journey with our younger players. Already an England U19 Development Player, Eleanor is showing a real natural presence as a coach, bringing the perfect attitude, enthusiasm and motivation to every session with the little ones. She is a delight to have around the club and is already proving to be a huge asset, both on and off the court. We’re incredibly proud to see her developing not only as a player, but now as a coach too. We can’t wait to see where this journey takes her! 👏⚽️

1st Hour – Amy C

Another one of the quiet ones who lets her smile and her futsal do the talking! ⚽️😊 Starting her second year at the club, Amy has all the right attributes to become a quality futsal player — determination, technique and, perhaps most importantly, a fantastic willingness to learn and take on coaching. We saw all of those qualities on show today, with some really positive moments throughout the session. And, as always, she did it all with a huge smile on her face! Fab session, Amy. Keep working hard, keep enjoying your futsal and please never change! ❤️⚽️

2nd Hour – Lily N

Apart from apparently growing 3 or 4 inches over the summer, Lily was immense today! ⚽️💪 Covering virtually the whole court, Lily showed fantastic awareness of what was happening around her. She recognised when her team had no safety, made those horrible recovery runs to cover the danger, and then topped it all off with an absolute screamer of a shot! 🚀 We like Lily as a player. No, we really like Lily as a player! She has so many of the attributes we look for, and we just know she’s going to have a fabulous season. Keep doing what you’re doing, Lily — we’re loving watching you develop! ❤️⚽️

3rd Hour – Izzy S

Izzy is one of our longest-serving players, and today she showed exactly why we have so much faith in her going on to represent our ladies’ team. ⚽️❤️ From delicate little flicks around the corner to pile-driving finishes, this young lady has so much in her locker. Technique, creativity, power and a real understanding of the game — she has it all! And, best of all, we always get a “thank you” at the end of the session. That attitude and appreciation mean just as much to us as what she does on the court. One of the best? Absolutely. One of the very best. Thank you, Izzy — keep doing what you do! 👏⚽️❤️

On Sunday, we had the pleasure of watching York Futsal’s men’s first home game of the new season against newly promoted Rochdale. The result was a comfortable win for York, but what really struck us was everything that happened around the game. There were more than 200 paying supporters in the venue, a light show and smoke at the start, popcorn, drinks and hot dogs available, a half-time competition and club sponsors in attendance. At half-time, the court was filled with young children, mainly boys, kicking futsal balls around and enjoying the experience of being on the same court where they had just watched the game.

We take our hats off to Junior and everyone involved in making York Futsal one of the best futsal experiences in the country. It was obvious that a huge amount of work has gone into creating something that people want to be part of. And, if we’re honest, we came away jealous — not jealous of York’s success, but jealous of the support.

Because the previous day we had hosted our first women’s home game of the season. We’ve tried repeatedly to attract a club sponsor, but so far nobody has been interested. We had around 25 spectators in attendance, many of whom didn’t pay. There was no light show, no smoke, no food and no drinks. Unfortunately, the sports hall doesn’t allow food or drink inside the venue, so there are practical limitations too. There were also very few children watching.

That’s the frustrating part. We aren’t a new club. This year we celebrate our 10th anniversary. We are the current National Tier 2 League Champions, we’ve won the National Plate and the local women’s summer 5-a-side league, and there were England development players on show at our opening home game. The quality is there. The players are there. The success is there.

And yet getting people through the door remains incredibly difficult.

Our opening home game produced seven goals and plenty of goalmouth action. Women’s futsal is fast, exciting, skilful and competitive. There is no shortage of entertainment on the court. What we are short of is people watching it.

And that’s where the double-edged sword comes in. We need investment and sponsorship to make the match-day experience bigger and better, but sponsors understandably want to see an audience. At the same time, we need supporters to come through the door before we can create the atmosphere, generate income and demonstrate to potential sponsors that women’s futsal has an audience.

We need people to support women’s futsal with their pockets and with their feet. Buy a ticket. Bring your children. Bring your friends. Come along and make some noise. If you’re a local business, consider sponsoring a team or supporting a match. If you’ve got children who enjoy football, let them see women’s futsal and the players who could become their role models.

Because women’s futsal isn’t going to grow simply because we want it to. It needs investment, exposure, sponsors, volunteers and, perhaps most importantly, bums on seats.

We’ve spent ten years building this club. We’ve won trophies, competed at national level and developed players. Now we need the wider community to help us take the next step. The players are doing their bit on the court. We need everyone else to do theirs off it.

Come and watch. Come and support. Come and be part of it. Women’s futsal deserves the opportunity to grow — but it needs people to turn up and make that growth possible.

Coach Chris

A few images from today…