Fran Kirby

[Wax Jacket]

I think the cut off for mixed football is 14, over that age it is not permitted.

I think you are right but IMO it is a pretty arbitrary and stupid limit.

I once watched an un-official friendly between an U18s women's team of a reasonably high standard against an U18 mens team. The ref spent most of his time protecting the guys from some very robust challenges from the girls who clearly wanted to make a point about their ability to compete physically, as well as in terms of skill!

Fran currently trains with and, I imagine, competes against our academy guys (U18s I believe) in their training sessions with no problems.

most 18 year-old males are pretty weak though tbf

[JC]

Notice she missed the last game through injury. Anybody have any idea how bad?

[East End Lady]

Think she is back training this week so can't have been too bad.
I think it is the Under21s that she trains with rather than the U18s

[Kitsondinho]

Don't wish to alarm anyone, but she was retweeting the Sw*nd*n score on Monday AND seemingly supporting them......However, I reckon she will set the World Cup alight...she has been absolute quality both times I've seen her for England. It'll be a real credit to our club if she does well in June!

[WAZZOCK]

Only because Ben Gladwin used to work for our Community Trust.

[Kitsondinho]

Fair enough.....I was fairly sure she didn't support Swindon...but just wanted to check!!

[Libertine]

Has Reading ever had a player play in a World Cup representing England whilst playing for Reading before?

We have a quite strong Women's National Team here in the US so maybe us Yanks take the women's game more seriously. But I think this is quite an honor, and good reflection on the club. Congrats Fran and good luck to England in their quest to finish second to the US...

[WAZZOCK]

Bobby Convey

[Platypuss]

Don't remember him playing for England.

[Sutekh]

Incidentally (from the FTFC website)...

Farnborough Football Club have been informed that Reading Women’s FA WSL 2 home fixture with Millwall Lionesses will now take place at the Madejski Stadium next Friday (22 May) evening, kick off 7:45pm.

The FA WSL 2 fixture was originally scheduled to take place at Cherrywood Road but it has now been moved to the home of Reading FC, kick off 7:45pm. Please spread the word!

Don’t let a change of venue put you off supporting! Join Reading Women next Friday (22 May) as they attempt to get over 1000 supporters into the Madejski Stadium with their #1000fanchallenge.

Tickets for the game can be pre-purchased online (£1 discount from Match Day prices) or you can pay at the turnstiles at the Madejski Stadium on the day of the game.

Kick off is at 7:45pm.

Pre-purchased tickets:

Adults: £4
Concessions: £2.
Tickets can be pre-purchased online here.

Admission prices at the ground on Match Day:

Adults: £5
Concessions: £3.

[toppy]

Good opportunity to get a few new people. I might pop along if I get to see Fran...

[RoyalBlue]

Has Reading ever had a player play in a World Cup representing England whilst playing for Reading before?

We have a quite strong Women's National Team here in the US so maybe us Yanks take the women's game more seriously. But I think this is quite an honor, and good reflection on the club. Congrats Fran and good luck to England in their quest to finish second to the US...

I think you know that you take the women's game more seriously than in the UK. Look how many colleges (universities in proper English) have womens soccer (football in real English) teams, many with facilities/staffing that lower level professional/semi-professional clubs in the UK would be jealous of, and where many of the players get all of their expenses covered whilst obtaining a degree. On top of that, you have a strong professional women's club setup.

Hope Solo (US Women's Goalkeeper for the less knowledgeable) has 866K followers on twitter! @ReadingFC have 'just' 152K, Joe Hart has 11.4K

No matter how well the women's game develops in the UK, we will struggle to catch up with the US, particularly given the sheer numbers of youngsters that are taking up the girls'/women's game over your side of the pond (and that's despite the very high cost, compared to the UK, of playing kids football (soccer) in the US).

Good opportunity to get a few new people. I might pop along if I get to see Fran...

I doubt you will get to see her play and she may not be there at all I'm afraid, as the England Women's World Cup Squad have already met up for their training camp I believe. Still well worth going to watch the game though as Reading have a good number of other excellent players as well (full internationals and U21 etc.). The game against Everton was excellent and certainly made nonsense of some of the claims about the women's game, including that it is 'soft'.

[Royal Rother]

To be fair the number of followers of Hope Solo's Twitterings might have something to do with her interesting "selfies" that went public a few months ago.

[RoyalBlue]

To be fair the number of followers of Hope Solo's Twitterings might have something to do with her interesting "selfies" that went public a few months ago.

No doubt that did increase the number of followers but I believe she had many hundreds of thousand followers even prior to that. She is a global star of women's football.

[RoyalBlue]

Selfies & Hope (Solo not Akpan) aside, Reading FC Women have just travelled to top of the table Domcaster Belles and won 3-0! And that was without Fran I believe.

Reading FC Women are now top of WSL2 and in a strong position for promotion to FAWSL1!

Well worth a visit to the Mad Stad this Friday.

[Royal Rother]

Excellent. Puts us top now.

[Brosef Stalin]

Excellent. Puts us top now.

Jumping on the glory bandwagon

[sandman]

You know it was a shit season when the Women's team winning is considered 'excellent' news.

[kwik-silva]

Well it'd be nice if the men's team could follow suit

[RoyalBlue]

You know it was a shit season when the Women's team winning is considered 'excellent' news.

You know that dinosaurs never really died out when you get comments like that!

3-0 win away to the favourites for promotion and at what is still a very big club, and which puts our team top of the table of WSL2 is excellent news.

If you can remove the blinkers from your eyes for just a short while you might be able to find your way to the Mad Stad this Friday and perhaps see that women's football in 2015 is way different from how it was previously (perhaps rightly in many cases a decade or so ago) portrayed.