History
The inaugural meeting of the Northern Ireland Women’s Football Association was held in the Post Office Youth Club, College Square North, Belfast on the 26th November 1976.
Mary McVeigh was elected as the first Chair and the meeting discussed the formation of the league, its Constitution and rules as well as the recruitment of new teams and players. The Association agreed to play as a summer league under association football rules with the only exception being that teams played 35 minutes each way instead of 45 minutes. This has since been amended to 45 minutes each way in line with all adult matches played under the auspices of the Irish Football Association.
The 1977 season kicked off with 3 Divisions of 6 teams. However, it was considered more practical to reduce this to two divisions for the 1978 season.
From those early beginnings the NIWFA has now expanded to its present size of 50 teams with approximately 1200 players (over the age of 14) competing in 7 divisions during the months of April – September.
Over the last eighteen months the current NIWFA committee has worked hard to develop the women’s game in Northern Ireland and has focussed on, among other things, assisting clubs to improve their capacity. The committee has already organised a number of information days for clubs as well as a subsidised level one coaching course for coaches working with women’s teams.
The committee has also looked at improving the organisation of league affairs and has appointed a fixtures and referees secretary to ensure that fixtures are arranged well in advance and that they are also allocated match officials.
More recently the NIWFA has become the first association to appoint a designated child protection officer – Valarie Martin – to advise clubs on best practice and to ensure coaches and officials have received appropriate training and screening to work with young people.
It is worth pointing out that all of these posts along with committee are filled on a voluntary basis and the work carried out by all the post holders is invaluable to women’s football.
The league management committee currently holds all rights to the NIWFA website, to the various domestic leagues including the Premier, Championship, Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, Division 4 and Reserve League.
Two years ago, in order to increase competition and interest and excitement in all divisions, the current committee introduced promotion and relegation into all leagues (except the Reserve league which is set up for Clubs with 2nd teams).
The Premiership winners represent Northern Ireland in the UEFA Club Championships each year (with Crusaders Newtownabbey Strikers being the 2009 Premier League Champions).
In addition to the various divisional titles there are also divisional cups with the IFA also running an Irish Cup competition (currently sponsored by Coca Cola).
The committee is constantly looking at ways of increasing the profile of women’s football and just last season revamped the NIWFA website www.niwfa.org introducing additional features such as leading scorers as well as advising club who would be refereeing their matches.
The website was updated regularly with fixtures, scorers and league tables all being kept up to date.
Also last year the league received unprecedented media coverage with weekly reports in the News Letter and a host of regional news papers. There were also regular items on the IFA’s official website.
This season the committee will once again appoint an experienced print journalist to continue the excellent work to date of improving the image of the women’s game.
Earlier this season it was announced that all leagues (and Divisional Cups) now have a new sponsor – Davison’s Frudles – and clubs will receive training balls and bibs as a result of this exciting new partnership with Davison’s and their new healthy snack – Frudles.
This is a two year deal which is already bringing benefits to women’s football and gives the committee a firm foundation to plan into the future.
Junior Football
At Junior level there are growing numbers of players with a majority of senior clubs have an expanding youth section that they coach, develop and nurture.
This will ensure that there is a steady stream of young players entering the women’s game over the next few years.
In conjunction with the IFA there are a number summer leagues for young players as well as Schools Leagues. This allows girls the opportunity to start playing football at a young age and provides a clear progression to a local Club and the opportunity to continue into the higher echelons of the game.
International Football
At international level the various teams have made enormous strides over the last few years.
The senior team, under manager Alfie Wylie, continues to improve its standing in World Football with some excellent performances and with the NIWFA organising ever more competitive divisions the signs for the future are very positive.
