Kicking up a Storm – Evolution of Girls Soccer in Beijing

As the old adage goes, anything you can do I can do better. And it is this adage that has been a rallying cry for women across the world in pursuit of equality in the greater society and also in fields largely considered to be the preserve of men at the time. Nowhere does this hold truer than in sports. Women, especially in the last century, railed against the misconceptions of female fragility by emerging as top elite athletes, conquering the world of sports everywhere from marathon running, to deadweight lifting. Who can claim not to know the likes of Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova?

Despite these gains in certain sports, some continue to be closed to female participation, a boys club if you will, and none more so than soccer. Just this year, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women’s World Cup was held in France, with the US team beating their Dutch rivals 2-0. And despite it being a spectacular event, it didn’t garner as much fanfare or international coverage as is offered to the FIFA Men’s World Cup when it happens. And even when the teams or indeed the players were featured, it was rarely anything to do with their exemplary performance on the field, and more about “drama” back home. Most famously, Megan Rapinoe, the captain of the US team, got into a Twitter battle with President Trump, further detracting from a hard-won victory.

The US women’s soccer team after their win at the FIFA World Cup earlier this year

This sort of discrimination, albeit unintentional on the part of news outlets, sets up a dangerous precedent which more or less states that if a woman dare go out of her comfort zone and attempt something in a field dominated by men, she will not be taken seriously and her gains no matter how hard won, will be diminished.

How then can societies across the world nurture and inspire the next generation’s elite athletes, be it male or female, while undoing gender bias in these same sports? Enter, China ClubFootball.  Established in 2001, China ClubFootball has dedicated its resources to providing the best possible training for all its trainees.  In the past year alone, the facility has seen approximately 3000 boys and girls aged between 3 and 18 enjoy their programs, which have been crafted by a pool of 16 full-time coaches drawn from the UK. With a curriculum designed by their Director of Coaching (an ex- Liverpool Football Club international Academy Head Coach), all trainees are guaranteed to not only have an all-inclusive, multilingual fun time, but also achieve the right balance between physical and motor skill and social skills.

Let’s Meet The Coach

Coach Sophie Hunt 

One way of motivating young sports enthusiasts to pursue their athletic dreams is to present them with a successful version of what they would aspire to be. Coach Sophie is just that.

What experience do you have as a football coach and how long have you been doing this in Beijing?

My coaching journey started in England working for Coventry City Girls Football Club (FC). As a previously first team player for the club, I was excited to start coaching and provide the opportunity for more girls to get involved in the game. It was here I gained my Football Association (FA) Level 1 and 2 coaching badges and was responsible for managing the under-11s girls team. The role included organizing and coaching the training sessions and running league matches on the weekends.

I was also involved in many projects with Sky Blues in the community. These projects offered opportunity for young players to play football and develop new skills. We ran a project called the Wildcats program which aimed to give 5-11 year old girls the opportunity to play football. We ran four centers across Coventry and Warwickshire and was a part of the 200 clubs in England promoting girls’ football.

I have now been in Beijing for three months working with ClubFootball and I am proud of what we have achieved in this time. My colleague Rob Skupien and I have worked together to create the ClubFootball High School Girls Team which have been training hard at the International School of Beijing (ISB) in the Autumn term. The number of girls in the team keeps growing so much that we have arranged and played four matches against Western Academy of Beijing (WAB), Harrow Beijing, and South American Football Academy (SAFA).

Members of the all-girls team 

This has inspired the club to focus on the younger generation and we have found great success with running a girls-only after-school program at ISB. We have 30 girls from grades 2 – 5 signed up for the autumn course and 24 for our winter course. This has been fantastic to see so many girls get involved in football.

Following the success we have been experiencing with the girls in Shunyi, Martin Chan, yet another one of my colleagues who has extensive experience as a coach, has been working hard to carry on the momentum in the Sanlitun area. Therefore, we ran a girls-only taster session at the British School of Beijing, Sanlitun (BSB Sanlitun) on December 8 and was thrilled with the response we received! It was great to see so many girls happy and experiencing the game and they all trained very well! We are now looking to run the girls-only winter program for grades 3-5 starting in January.

What does the curriculum entail for the girls?

ClubFootball’s age and level appropriate curriculum is overseen by our Director of Football Alex Arnold (ex-Liverpool FC International Academy head coach), and is designed to maximize each child’s technical, tactical, social, and psychological development through engaging, educational, and enjoyable coaching sessions.

ClubFootball use a process called the four-corner model. The four-corner model is designed to make coaches and parents think about more than just technique and physical fitness. It is used to highlight the needs of a developing person (player) and is used as a guide to think how you might construct practices to include all aspects of a player’s development needs. These four corners include technical & tactical, physical, social, and psychological attributes of a player. It is these four corners that we base our sessions around the girls.

We want each player to have as many touches on the ball as possible so they can feel comfortable on the ball and improve their confidence to express themselves and try new skills. I also think it is important that the girls get the chance to meet other footballers their age so they can make new friends and most importantly, play with smiles on their faces! The sessions will involve learning the technical fundamentals such as dribbling, passing, and everyone’s favorite, shooting!

What is your goal as a coach with your students?

Ms. Hunt in session with her students

My goal as a coach is to make a positive impact on my students and meet their individual needs. Some girls may just want to come and make new friends so I try to make sure the session is as social as possible so that players can meet new people. Some players may want to improve on a certain technique so I need to make sure the practice involves different technical skills and set individual challenges, so their needs are being met.

My goal for the girls team would be to keep running girls-only training sessions all year round. I would like to make sure they enjoy the experience with us and in the long term to arrange friendlies with other teams and build a girls-only league. This would be a fantastic achievement and I believe in the long term is very much possible.

What is the inspiration behind the girls training program and how are parents reacting to it?

From Martin’s and my own experience, we have seen the ladies game grow in England and have experienced the potential it holds. We would love to replicate this in China and see huge potential in how big the women’s game can be here.  Also, the Women’s World Cup was a great success this year with an average live audience of more than 82 million watching the World Cup final. I believe this can be a huge inspiration for any girl looking to start playing football.

Whenever I speak to parents with regards to the girls-only session, the feedback has been extremely positive. Many parents are happy to see the program as there are not many girls-only classes in the city. They feel reassured that their child is learning in safe environment where they can play against girls of the same physical ability and relate to the girls they are playing with.

Photos: Courtesy of Billboard>Mitchell Peters, Clubfootball