The club has seized this new opportunity to add a women’s team to its two existing teams – the men’s first team, which plays in the Southern League First Division, and the club’s younger development squad.
Club officials will gather tonight (Thursday, June 15) at Tavistock’s Langsford Park ground at 8pm to welcome the new players to the club and to celebrate the launch of this new venture with a bar and barbecue and are actively encouraging women who would be interested in joining to come along too.
The new team are set to wear the familiar red and black colours worn by all Tavistock teams.
Martin Williams, chair of Tavistock AFC, said: ‘We’ve been wanting to establish a women’s team for some time now and finally circumstances have come together to allow it to happen. We’re absolutely delighted with this new development at our club which is moving forward in leaps and bounds at the moment.’
The team will be run by a management team consisting of Dylan Large and Dave Hengle, both of whom have extensive records of managing women’s teams in Devon and Cornwall, with a range of league and cup trophies to their names.
Dylan said: ‘We’re really looking forward to being part of the Tavistock set-up — it’s a great club with impressive facilities. The evening of June 15 (next Thursday) will be our first open training session and we’re inviting all female footballers who are over 16 and would like to be a part of the squad to come along and trial with us as we look to build an effective and successful squad over the next few seasons.’
Committee member Ken Orchard said: ‘We had this idea bubbling for about the last 12 months and the desire to make it a more inclusive family club, involving more children and young people with the ethos of the club.
‘We were actively looking for people with great contacts and experience who could run the team and it so happens that everything has fallen into place now at the right time. We knew there was an interest both locally and nationally, especially after the Lioness’ victory last year.
‘We’re all very excited and it’s a huge step forward for the club. So far we’ve approached a few women who are involved in football that we have previosuly worked with and have our core players in place, we’re looking to establish a team of 15 to 16 players.’
Ken stressed that tonight’s launch was also to serve as an open training session for any women over the age of 16 would like to join the team to come along in plenty of time for the new season and added: ‘I hope this inspires many others, especially our younger players and those interested to join or even just support their local team and see what’s going on with all things football in Tavistock.’