The Leeds United Foundation have launched a new Girls Development Centre at the Grammar School Leeds which will run on Wednesday evenings from 6pm to 7pm.

This new centre, which will host its first session this evening (Wednesday 12^th January), will run alongside the three existing centres that are located in Pontefract, Knaresborough and Scarborough – with the sessions for each of these currently taking place on a Friday evening each week.

The aim for the Girls Development Centre programme is to encourage girls at a grassroots level to join our female pathway within the club, where we offer technical sessions that follow topics that are parallel to the boy’s development centre. This programme also identifies talent to progress up the female pathway into the Shadow Squad and then onto the Academy, with both initiatives also delivered by the Leeds United Foundation.

The training sessions will give young females the chance to take part in an extra session that is in addition to their grassroots training, and this will help them to improve their skills whilst also having fun and maintaining loyalty to their grassroots clubs. The coaches delivering the sessions have seen previous success with the existing Development Centres, with girls being invited to the Shadow Squad for a two-week trial and they are thriving.

All sessions are run by Leeds United coaches and there are opportunities for female role models such as Leeds United Women first-team players to attend sessions to speak with girls on their journeys.

If you would like more information on any of the Development Centres above, please contact Sophie.Evans@leedsunited.com.