Wolves have announced the appointment of Jenna Burke-Martin as the club's first full-time head of women's and girl's football.

The former Wolves Women assistant manager will lead the women's and girl's football at the club, working alongside the Academy management of Jan Hunter-Barrett and Laura Nicholls.

With the aim to make the club the most desirable in the region and to get the participation of young girls of Wolverhampton in sport, the club have also announced that all of the club's female age groups will utilise the Academy's facilities at Compton Park.

One Pack ethos

Since Jeff Shi and FOSUN arrived at the club, the support the women's team has received has gradually increased- with their tremendous FA Cup run being streamed on the club's official YouTube channel.

And Hunter-Barrett is excited about this further step forward, "Moving from being under the Foundation umbrella and into the Academy is a statement of intent towards women's football from within the whole club.

"We have our 'One Pack' ethos here, but the Academy showing they want the women and girls to be part of their set-up is a massive compliment for us, but it's also the way it should be.

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"It's going to be of massive benefit, not only to the female footballers we currently have at the club, but also the thousands of young local girls who dream of playing for Wolves, and having a full-time member of staff who is dedicated to women's and girl's football at the club is a massive step forward.

"It will be duel beneficial, as the coaches in the women's section will get more support from the Academy, but we can also add to the support which is already in place in the Academy set-up, but in terms of what the Academy offers our women and girls, it is much bigger than anything we've had."

The move is set to take the club to the next level, not only the first team but also the young girls of the West Midlands.

Technical director Scott Sellars discussed the progression, "Women's football has progressed massively over the last 10 years, and we want to support our girl's and women's teams as much as we can.

"We want to improve the quality of facilities and coaching that our female footballers experience, and we felt the best way to do that was to link our male and female provision together into one Academy.

“For us as a club, we also want to improve participation of girls locally to really raise the standards of our women’s football programme across the age categories and hopefully they will progress into the first-team.

“We have a lot of knowledgeable and talented staff at the club, and by linking together, we can support each other to provide the best facilities and coaching possible. We can help develop our women’s and girl’s programme so local girls want to sign for Wolves and progress though at Wolves.

“Already this summer, a lot of the recruitment we’ve seen into the women’s team has been down to the infrastructure, the facilities and the support we can offer them here at Compton, and it’s really important we continue that across all ages.”


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