Tottenham Hotspur Women
1984 London
Tottenham Hotspur Women's Football Club are a professional women’s football club who play in the FA Women’s Super League, the top division in England. They currently play their fixtures at the Hive Stadium in Edgeware, sharing it with men's National League outfit Barnet and FA Women's Championship side London Bees. The club are managed by a joint team of Karen Hills and Juan Amoros, and are affiliated with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
History
Tottenham Hotspur Women were founded in 1985 as Broxbourne Ladies. Notable figures in the club's early days were Sue Sharples and Kay Lovelock. Sharples was an employee in the White Hart Lane office and joined with Lovelock, a local goalkeeper, to establish Broxbourne in order to replace a local college team that folded. Sharples would become the club's first secretary and would secure the rights to rename the club to Tottenham Hotspur Women in 1991. A reserve team was formed in 1992.
The Sue Sharples Memorial Trophy was set up in 1994 following the tragic early death of the club's founder in April of that year. The Spurs Reserve side would win the inaugural competition in 1995, beating Mill Hill 2-0 in the final.
Influential chairman Glenn Weaver was appointed in 2000 and set about transforming the club into a force for good in the community. He adopted a very hands-on approach to the day-to-day running of the club. He would voluntarily wash team kits, arrange fixtures as well as refereeing and coaching duties. Following his work, the club was given the Sport England Volunteer Investment Programme Award in 2002. The club were also awarded the FA Charter Standard Club and the FA Charter Standard Female Club in 2006 for the community work set in place by Weaver.
Spurs won various lower-league honours prior to 2015, including the FA South East Combinations League in 2010/11 and the London County Senior Cup in 2012. However, the 2015/16 season would prove to be a watershed season. While in the third tier of women's football, Spurs lifted the Ryman's Women's Cup and the FA Women's Premier League Cup, completing their first major cup double. In the same season, Spurs finished runners up in the Capital Cup and failed to win promotion from the third tier.
The promotion would come in the 2016-17 season, along with an impressive quadruple. Spurs retained the Ryman's Women's Cup and FA Women's Premier League Cup as well as winning the FA Women's Premier League South and the FA Women's Championship Play-Offs to secure second-tier football. Spurs also lost the Capital Cup final for the second consecutive season.
Spurs secured a seventh-placed finish in the WSL 2 before finishing runners-up in the new FA Women's Championship in 2018-19, being promoted to the Women's Super League alongside newly-founded Manchester United Women, with the top flight being changed to a 12-team division to accommodate them.
On the 17th November 2019, the club played a match at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as part of the FA’s inaugural ‘Women’s Football Weekend’. 38,268 supporters flocked out to the ground built in place of the old White Hart Lane to watch them play the North London Derby against Arsenal. The visitors ran out 2-0 victors in the fixture, with Kim Little and Vivianne Miedema scoring the Gunners’ goals. The match set a new league attendance record in a season that had already seen bumper games at the Olympic Stadium, the Etihad, and Stamford Bridge as well as other large ‘men’s grounds.
As of 26th March 2020, the club are led by joint head coaches Karen Hills and Juan Amaros. Before the season was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 around the globe, Spurs sat eighth in the FA Women’s Super League on twenty points.
Stadium
The first team moved from Barrows Farm Stadium to Cheshunt in 2016. The club was searching for a move to London as Cheshunt was in Hertfordshire, and that was found at the Hive Stadium at the start of the 2019-20 season.
They share the Hive Stadium with Barnet FC in the men’s National League as well as London Bees in the FA Women’s Championship. The ground was opened in 2013, and can hold 6500 fans with 5,419 of this as seated capacity. In November of 2017, planning applications were submitted to the local council for a development of the stadium which would boost its capacity up to 8500.
The stadium is easily accessible by public transport, with both Canons Park and Queensbury on the Jubille Line within 600m of the stadium. Bus routes 79, 186, 288 and 340 also all serve the stadium.
Bolstered by the game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in November of 2019, the club had an average attendance in the FAWSL of 8,614 supporters.
Squad
1. Chloe Morgan
2. Lucia Leon
3. Ria Percival
4. Josie Green
5. Sophie Mclean
6. Anna Filbey
7. Gemma Davison
8. Chloe Peplow
9. Rianna Dean
10. Coral-Jade Haines
11. Jenna Schillaci
14. Angela Addison
15. Siri Worm
16. Kit Graham
17. Jessica Naz
19. Lucy Quinn
21. Emma Mitchell
22. Becky Spencer
23. Rosella Ayane
25. Hannah Godfrey
29. Ashleigh Neville
Spurs have also recently announced the formation of a WSL Dual Career Academy. Set to launch in the 2020/21 season, it will balance the work and training commitments of players aged between 16 and 21 in adherence to the Dual Career Academy scheme launched by the WSL in 2018. The academy will provide medical provisions, strength training and football coaching alongside work or education.
Honours
- FA Women's Premier League
- Championship Play-off Winners (1): 2016–17
- FA Women's Premier League Southern Division
- Winners (1): 2016–17
- FA South-East Combination
- Winners (1): 2010–11
- London and South-East Regional Women's Football League – Premier Division
- Winners (1): 2007–08
- Greater London Regional Women's League – Division 1
- Winners (1): 1997–98
- London County Senior Cup[24]
- Winners (1): 2011–12
- Greater London Regional Women's League Cup
- Winners (1): 1995–96
- Russell Cup
- Winners (1): 1997–98[25]
- Ryman's Women's Cup
- Winners (2): 2015–16,[26] 2016–17
- FA Women's Premier League Cup
- Winners (1): 2015–16,[6] 2016–17