SJR Worksop Women's four-year fairytale to write club history

SJR Worksop made history this month by reaching the second round of the Women’s FA Cup for the first time, writes club chairman Andrew Guest.

The milestone achievement comes after four seasons of dramatic change, from fighting relegation to writing club history.

Sometimes I look at where we are now and think back to where we started, and even I struggle to believe it.

But this hasn’t happened overnight. It’s taken difficult decisions, huge recruitment drives, setbacks, investment, plenty of mistakes and, most importantly, a determination to keep moving forward.

There’s actually a bit of personal history behind all of this for me.

My mum and grandma both played football back in the 1970s for Carfasteners, at a time when women’s football certainly wasn’t popular and the opportunities and recognition available to female players were very different to what they are today.

One of their teammates was Lorraine Dobbs, who went on to represent England. I find that quite incredible when I think about it.

So, in some ways, seeing where our women’s section is today, making history and inspiring the next generation, brings things full circle.

When the women’s team first joined SJR Worksop after leaving Worksop Town, where they had been financially phased out, we allowed them to operate largely independently for two seasons.

Eventually, we made the decision as a club to properly invest in the women’s section.

From the outside looking in, things weren’t great. We had some very good players, but we were regularly turning up to matches with just 10 or 11 available, and even the kit situation wasn’t where it should have been.

Something had to change. I made the difficult decision to change the management and brought Lee and Phill in.

It wasn’t universally popular. There was resistance, players moved on and suddenly we found ourselves having to rebuild almost from scratch.

That first season was tough as we stayed up by the skin of our teeth and knew we had to recruit heavily in the summer.

We targeted two local players in Emily Murphy and Lauren Cundy. We believed that if we could attract them, other players would start taking notice, and that’s exactly what happened.

A valiant effort throughout the season brought the title and promotion right down to the unforgettable final game against Retford that we needed to win.

The dramatic showdown featured seven goals and a monumental penalty save that secured our place in Tier 5.

The following season brought more new recruits as we adjusted to the significant step up, signing influential players including Millie Clarke, who has since become our all-time leading goalscorer.

We became back-to-back Plate Cup champions after beating Mansfield Town and Gainsborough Trinity in the respective finals.

SJR Worksop also reached the FA Cup first round proper for the first time in our history. Now, we’ve bettered that record with our place in this season’s second round.

We’ve become the first team from Worksop to reach this stage of the competition since 1956.

We’d spent years building relationships, scouting players, learning from mistakes and developing links with educational programmes to build the strongest squad we’ve ever assembled.

Seeing SJR Worksop appearing on the Sky Sports app is genuinely surreal. I remember when we were struggling to get 11 players on the pitch.

Now we’re making national headlines and competing in the latter stages of the Women’s FA Cup. It’s incredible.

We’re becoming a real force in the women’s game.

And what’s particularly pleasing is how that progress is reflecting across the whole club.

Our Women’s Community Team are absolutely flying, winning all six of their opening six matches.

That’s another fantastic achievement and shows that the women’s section is about so much more than just our First Team.

We’re creating opportunities, building teams and giving more women and girls the chance to enjoy football and be part of SJR Worksop.

And we’re starting to see the impact this is having on the younger generation too.

Our girls’ teams are being inspired by what the senior women are achieving. For some of our Wildcats girls, that inspiration will become very real on the 15th November, when they’ll be attending the FA Cup match as mascots.

Girls who are taking their first steps in football, watching and walking out alongside players who are making history for their club.

Hopefully, some of those young girls will be the ones representing SJR Worksop in years to come.

Many of the players who have helped us get here, including those who have since moved on or stepped into community football, played a huge part in building what we have today.

Every player who fought to keep us up, every player who helped us win promotion, every player who contributed to those cup successes.

They all played their part. We’re now being talked about in women’s football.

Players who perhaps wouldn’t have considered joining SJR Worksop a few years ago are now genuinely interested in what we can offer.

That tells me we’re doing something right.

Our biggest strength as a club is that we’re prepared to try things. We’re not afraid to make difficult decisions and take risks, and we’re certainly not afraid to fail.

We’ve made mistakes, plenty of them, but we’ve tried to learn quickly, put things right and keep pushing forward.

There have been times when people have questioned our ambition. Times when things haven’t worked and we’ve had to start again.

But we’ve never stopped believing in where we want to take this football club.

And while I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved, there will be no arrogance from us.

We know there’s still plenty to improve. We’ll just keep working, learning and getting better.