Argyle ladies losing some of their best players and coaches

[Ottawa Green]

https://www.pafc.co.uk/news/2020/august/ladies-latest4/

Having already lost Supporters’ Player of the Year Leah Burridge to Yeovil Town, manager Leonard bids farewell to Welsh international Helen Bleazard and top goalscorer Tash Knapman, who has opted to join Buckland Athletic.

 

[Keepitgreen]

I see Zoe Cunningham is going too. They'll all be missed.

 

[IJN]

I'm hearing rumours that the club is cutting funding for the Ladies team and there are managerial walkouts as well.

No doubt part of the cost cutting due to Covid 19.

Very very sad if true, which I believe it to be, but we had been warned that money saving world occur and I suppose our 'Core Business' is the first team followed by the Academy.

 

[philevs]

I'm hearing rumours that the club is cutting funding for the Ladies team and there are managerial walkouts as well.

No doubt part of the cost cutting due to Covid 19.

Very very sad if true, which I believe it to be, but we had been warned that money saving world occur and I suppose our 'Core Business' is the first team followed by the Academy.

This would presumably explain why the recent club questionnaire asks us how important we see it for Argyle to have a ladies’ team.

 

[WoodsyGreen]

Women's football teams don't make any money. You can see from the league pyramid that the clubs at the top are the traditionally bigger men's clubs because they can afford to write off the loss.

Women's football should go back to its roots when clubs like Doncaster Belles ruled the roost and the men's clubs weren't involved.

It's become nothing more than a PR exercise for the biggest clubs to hoover up the best players and boast about how inclusive they are because they care about women playing sport so much.

Sorry to be cynical but it's just a box-ticking exercise for them. Nobody wants to pay to watch women's football and that's why it'll never get close to rivalling the men's game no matter what the Guardian and BBC try to tell you.

 

[Paul H]

Women's football teams don't make any money. You can see from the league pyramid that the clubs at the top are the traditionally bigger men's clubs because they can afford to write off the loss.

Women's football should go back to its roots when clubs like Doncaster Belles ruled the roost and the men's clubs weren't involved.

It's become nothing more than a PR exercise for the biggest clubs to hoover up the best players and boast about how inclusive they are because they care about women playing sport so much.

Sorry to be cynical but it's just a box-ticking exercise for them. Nobody wants to pay to watch women's football and that's why it'll never get close to rivalling the men's game no matter what the Guardian and BBC try to tell you.

Very true.

 

[philevs]

Women's football teams don't make any money. You can see from the league pyramid that the clubs at the top are the traditionally bigger men's clubs because they can afford to write off the loss.

Women's football should go back to its roots when clubs like Doncaster Belles ruled the roost and the men's clubs weren't involved.

It's become nothing more than a PR exercise for the biggest clubs to hoover up the best players and boast about how inclusive they are because they care about women playing sport so much.

Sorry to be cynical but it's just a box-ticking exercise for them. Nobody wants to pay to watch women's football and that's why it'll never get close to rivalling the men's game no matter what the Guardian and BBC try to tell you.

Very true.

Yep, spot on I think.
I like watching it personally, but don’t see why a Plymouth team necessarily has to be linked to Argyle.

 

[Argylegames]

You can see how some of the Prem clubs view it when you consider Liverpool won the Prem, but their ladies team was relegated.

I think they should be given as much emphasis as the u21 teams.

 

[Cult Of Personality]

It's a shame but this was always going to happen. The women's game just does not make money. In fact most of the big clubs run the women's team at a loss and only do so because it promotes the brand of the club.

 

[Biggs]

I think they should be given as much emphasis as the u21 teams.

Ideally, but it's tough when the U21 team is inextricably linked to the first team.

E.g. the development of a promising male player in the U21s that could either earn the club millions of pounds or play 100s of games for a much more profitable and high profile men's team, is always going to have way more emphasis than the female equivalent.

 

[Balham Green]

Women's football teams don't make any money. You can see from the league pyramid that the clubs at the top are the traditionally bigger men's clubs because they can afford to write off the loss.

Women's football should go back to its roots when clubs like Doncaster Belles ruled the roost and the men's clubs weren't involved.

It's become nothing more than a PR exercise for the biggest clubs to hoover up the best players and boast about how inclusive they are because they care about women playing sport so much.

Sorry to be cynical but it's just a box-ticking exercise for them. Nobody wants to pay to watch women's football and that's why it'll never get close to rivalling the men's game no matter what the Guardian and BBC try to tell you.

I tried watching women's wc last year. Painful. Keepers cant even reach the crossbar. Painful without having to listen to Phil Neville and the over-rated England team.

 

[IJN]

Goalkeeping has always been the weak spot in my opinion.

Our girls had good technique and incredible endeavour.

I can remember seeing the men vs Stanley away and not soon after our women. There was no contest. The ladies won hands down in playing for the shirt.

 

[crownhill pilgrim]

Women's football teams don't make any money. You can see from the league pyramid that the clubs at the top are the traditionally bigger men's clubs because they can afford to write off the loss.

Women's football should go back to its roots when clubs like Doncaster Belles ruled the roost and the men's clubs weren't involved.

It's become nothing more than a PR exercise for the biggest clubs to hoover up the best players and boast about how inclusive they are because they care about women playing sport so much.

Sorry to be cynical but it's just a box-ticking exercise for them. Nobody wants to pay to watch women's football and that's why it'll never get close to rivalling the men's game no matter what the Guardian and BBC try to tell you.

Agree with that.

 

[lilcol]

More bad news for the ladies teams. The first team Manager Dave Leonard and Director of football Trevor Rodd have now jumped ship . Could this be the end of the Ladies club I wonder?

 

[robin]

Agreed that it was predictable demise but disagree with the two main threads of comments ie; it is unwatchable and doesn’t make money.

To be clear, not that those facts are necessarily untrue, bu more that they are continually used to defend its demise.

Let’s turn a couple of those phrases on their head to describe the men’s game to see how they fare.

Men’s football teams don't make any money. You can see from the league pyramid that the clubs at the top are the traditionally bigger men's clubs because they can afford to write off the loss.

It's become nothing more than a PR exercise for the biggest clubs to hoover up the best players and boast about how inclusive they are because they care about men playing sport so much.

—————————-
Aren’t these true about the current state of men’s football. How many men’s teams make a profit? I would suggest instead that they survive because they have resources to service enormous debts. A clearer analogy would be If you owe billions and add to your debt by taking a second mortgage on your palatial home, you then you get to keep your home. However if you continually miss repayments on your tatty one bed apartment in the sticks then it will be taken away from you.

As for the argument of quality, yes it is way below the standard of the men’s game with gks a particular issue. However using that logic we would all be supporting Man City or Liverpool as they are light years away from us. I can remember at least two Argyle goalkeepers who could barely reach the crossbar, Dungey and Shilton, as well as a thousand other examples of paying to watch something that could barely be described as football that wasn’t even worth a tenth of the price of a match ticket...

Yes it is poorer quality, doesn’t make money and will have to go back to the drawing board but let’s look a little closer to home before coming up with the usual seemingly inevitable reasons.