Captain and Vice-Captain Lauren Williams and Charlie Thurston are excited about the season that lies ahead for Gillingham Ladies.

The pair will once again don the blue shirts for their local side as Gillingham Ladies look to bounce back from last season’s relegation, fresh from a morale boosting pre-season campaign that’s seen a new management team come in and plenty of new players in the squad.

Darren Hare and Jack Wheeler will take charge of the side following Simon Ratcliffe’s departure with Williams and Thurston two of the more senior members of the squad at Gillingham Ladies.

With women’s football having hit the headlines in recent weeks, the pair are delighted to pull on Gillingham shirts once again with Williams believing there is a really good vibe about the club this summer:

“We’ve got some really high expectations for the club this season. With Jack and Darren having come in, we’ve worked really hard this pre-season and with lots of new faces we want to go on and do something special for the club.”

That sentiment is echoed by Thurston who has spent some time playing in America and returned for a second spell with Gillingham Ladies last season:

“The World Cup has had a big impact on Women’s football in general and here at Gillingham, after a negative season last season, we’ve all come in this summer being positive and there’s a real buzz.”

“We’ve had high numbers at training and everyone’s working hard as one big team and it’s been good to do some team bonding playing footgolf together as that brings us closer together.”

 

Thurston has played for the club under the previous regime when Martin Andrews was Chairman and she is thankful for the effort he put in over the years to get the club to where it is now:

“Gillingham Football Club have welcomed us in and we are now one big club and there’s a real opportunity for girls in Kent to come through the Academy system and join the team.”

“Martin paved the way for all of that to happen and if it wasn’t for all his hard work in the early days, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

Having role models at any football club is important and both Williams and Thurston find themselves as being that at Gillingham Ladies now and they are hoping to inspire the next generation with Williams keen to see more girls playing football:

“I want to see girls coming into football at a young age and I work in a school myself and it’s great to go in on a morning and have girls come up to me and want to talk to me about football.”

“It never used to be like that when I was growing up and it’s great that we have some really great girls in our Academy pushing for first team places.”

Williams went on to explain how the side want to put last season behind them and move on:

“We have got to look at this season as a clean slate and push on, forget last season and move on. Simon did as best as he could last season and we really appreciate everything he did for us as it was a big committment.”

“We’ve got to move on and push for that promotion place.”

With such a young squad to work with, Thurston is hoping she can be a shoulder to cry on and show the support to some of the more junior members of the squad:

“I think it’s weird to come in and be a senior player. When I first joined Gills I was about seventeen or eighteen and looked up to the girls in the first team. You live and learn and having been around different teams and girls, it’s nice to have girls look up to you.”

“It’s a compliment having the girls look up to you and hopefully I can have a positive influence on them and help them make the right decisions. It’s also important that I pick them up if they make wrong decisions and talk to them in a positive way.”

“It’s exciting to put the Gills shirt on, walk out onto the pitch with young girls wanting to be mascots, look up to you and hold your hand.”

The World Cup has undoubtedly had a massive effect on women’s football in the past few months with England coming third over in Canada and Williams is hoping Gillingham Ladies can harness some of that good feeling:

“As a club, we have got really high expectations, not just for this season, but we have long term goals and after the Olympics everyone was saying how much women’s football had grown.”

“There’s a lot more girls and women playing the game now and the World Cup this year has helped blow eveything out of the water.”

“It’s great to see now that people want to have women’s names on the back of their shirts and that’s something we want to aim for at Gills and as a football nation.”

Whether women’s football gets on a par with the men’s game in our lifetime is debatable, but Charlie Thurston is hoping more positive changes can be made all the time she is involved in the game:

“I’d like to think we can eventually be on a par with men’s football, but realistically we have come a long way already. Things have changed so much in such a short space of time.”

“We should be happy with where we are now and I think if we keep going to way we are, women can concentrate on football and not just see it as a part-time thing and it can be an occupation.”

“I just wish I was born ten years later as the opportunities these girls have now is fantastic.”

It’s not just football that has seen a real change in attitudes over recent years with more women wanting to participate in sport and Lauren Williams hopes more girls and ladies get out and do something they enjoy:

“Social media has really helped with women in sport and the This Girl Can campaign has really been fantastic. It doesn’t matter if you are good at sport, just get out and do something.”

“Men are faster, fitter and stronger, but when people come to watch us play for the first time they tell us that they can’t believe the standard and how good it was.”

“They also remark on how we don’t all roll around on the floor!”

Williams was part of the Kent Sports News charity side that played a Maidstone United XI at The Gallagher Stadium in May, playing alongside Gills Ladies team-mate Emma Tune and she is pleased to have had the chance to have shown that women can compete against their male counterparts:

“At times we did get pushed off the ball and we didn’t always get to the ball, but it was good to get stuck in and show what we can do.”

“It was great to get feedback after the game and the likes of Danny Kedwell and Adam Birchall were fantastic support for us.”

“Charity games like that are fantastic for raising the profile of women in sport and hopefully there will be more games like that to show people what we can do.”

“We just hope that some of the fans that turn out to watch the men now come along and support us Ladies.”

Gillingham Ladies kick off their league campaign at home to Ipswich Town Ladies at Chatham Town’s ground on Sunday 16th August with kick off at 2pm.