In this blog, I will talk to you about my football experiences and the opportunities I’ve had in my first year at Club Doncaster Sports College.

Who I Represent

Being a student at Club Doncaster Sports College has many benefits, such as playing for the women’s football academy and representing Doncaster Rovers.

My football experiences began before the beginning of my first year at college as I chose to take part in the pre-season.

The first women’s football academy plays in the EFL league to play teams such as Sheffield United, Burton Albion, Scarborough and many other groups.

Pre-season

Pre-season consisted of 2 training sessions each week and 3 football games. Our manager Eric was pleased that he had a team to coach as this was the first women’s football team the college has had since opening 10 years ago.

During the training sessions we had each week, we completed drills, fitness tests, and games to understand how each other played.

The 3 teams we had in pre-season were Burton-Albion, Sheffield United and Manchester City.

Unfortunately, we could not play Manchester City due to enrollment dates for college students.

Our first games were against Burton-Albion, who were a great side and actually won our league at the end of the season.

The game ended up being 2-2, which was an excellent result for us when it was our first game ever as an aside.

The Sheffield United game was not as good as the match finished 7-3, but it was a well-battled game but did result in some girls walking away from the game with injuries.

The Season

Throughout the season, we played many teams such as Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesdays, Rotherham, Bradford, Preston, Burton-Albion and many others.

Our league lasted from September 2019 to March 2020. Before the COVID pandemic, we ended up being 6th in our league when the league got cut short.

Playing football gave me many opportunities, such as a place on tour to Holland. This also made me realise what type of physiotherapy I want to go into sports injuries and rehabilitation.

If you have the opportunity to play a sport and develop your skills and yourself as a person from where you can gain and benefit. I would highly recommend being a part of it.

Throughout the season, we had many great experiences, such as

• Playing in the football dome against Sheffield Wednesdays.
• Travelling to Preston to play on their sports facilities where they had a great set up of sports pitches for the games.

Benefit From These Experiences

From representing Doncaster Rovers underneath the college, I did result in some injuries during the season.

When these injuries occurred, I carried out some research on the injuries that I had due to playing football.

This made me look into the recovery side, which made me more interested in becoming a sports physiotherapist as this opened up my mind to a sports physiotherapist’s duties and responsibilities.

These football experiences have confirmed that I would love to become a sports physiotherapist, ideally in a football club. That would be my first choice, but any sports club would be a fantastic opportunity for me.