Women's walking footballers attend inaugural referee course

Saturday 20th July saw two of our women’s walking footballers given the opportunity to attend the very first National Women’s Walking Football Referee Course, which took place at St Georges Park.

After the recent remarkable support found behind women’s walking football, with an increasing amount of ladies showing an interest in taking part, the FA saw the need to put on a Women’s Walking Football Referee Course to develop the game further.

As a thank you, they gave every team who had participated in this year’s FA People’s Cup two free spaces on the inaugural course. Our women’s team shone at the competition held back in April, where they successfully made the final stages and only narrowly missed progressing into the semi-finals by one point.

Our two representative walking footballers, Jess and Juliet, thoroughly enjoyed the day and returned back home ready to share their knowledge with the rest of the team. The course helped grow their understanding of the format of the game, meaning they will be able to make sure they are consistently playing and training to the rules in their weekly sessions.

Juliet commented on the day: “The course was brilliant and a great opportunity for us to meet all of the ladies from walking football teams all over the country. As an introduction to refereeing course it was just the right balance between understanding the specific rules for walking football in the room and then putting that into practice on the pitch.”

Walking Football is a slow-paced version of the game and is designed to help people keep an active healthy lifestyle despite their age, as well as getting those back into playing football. Our sessions are aimed at, but not limited to, over 40-year-olds.

The women’s walking football sessions take place weekly at Monks Hill Sports Centre, Thursday, 7-8pm and are free.

To book a place on the session click here. Alternatively, to find out more please contact RoxanneBennett@palaceforlife.org