Huddersfield Town Women shown what to aspire to by classy upper-tier Burnley
The Terriers visited Lancashire for their second game of the WNL group stage and were on the receiving end of a 6-0 defeat
Losing heavily in the cup to a team from the division above is only to be expected, but this defeat away to Burnley will have come as a marker as to the standard Huddersfield Town want to get towards in future.
Burnley, who currently sit top of the third tier — the division above Town — went full-time professional over the summer having been in a hybrid model last season. This was, for the most part, their second-string line-up, and yet they had full internationals and players with dozens of games’ worth of Women’s Super League experience under their belts.
The boom in women’s football at the top end of the game has meant the level of investment now required to move up the divisions has risen exponentially over the past ten years.
Even as recently as the late 2010s, it was possible to be competitive at the top end of the second tier, WSL2, on what would now be seen as a shoestring budget even for a semi-professional fourth-tier club like Town. It was announced this week that minimum salaries equivalent to a full-time wage must now be paid to all players in the top two divisions.
The growing professionalisation of the women’s game can ultimately only be seen as a good thing, but it has led to some clubs being left behind. Doncaster Belles won the second tier in 2018, but were unable to afford promotion to the top flight and ended up going down a division instead.
The Belles finished last season in the fourth tier relegation zone, but were given a reprieve to stay in the league thanks to the knock-on effects of Blackburn taking a similar decision to drop out of the second tier and drop two levels into the fourth alongside Town and the Belles.
We bring this up because this is the landscape that Town Women now find themselves in as they look to get themselves back up into the third tier. Having pushed for promotion from that level for several years, they ended up coming down instead as one of the casualties of that push towards greater professionalisation.
Their players at the time were outspoken about what they saw as a need for greater investment and support from the men’s club to help them compete in an increasingly competitive division.
This summer’s move from the men’s side to do exactly that and integrate the women into the club has already started to have an impact. Town’s summer recruitment and a strong start to the new season have raised hopes they may be able to make a return to the third tier.
Town are currently second in a juvenile league table, behind the only side to have beaten them so far, Cheadle Town Stingers. New signings like Alise Gindra and Fliss Jones — who made her move to Town towards the end of last season — have already made a telling impact on Town’s performances and results, while star centre-forward Laura Elford has recently returned from a summer injury and is now building up her minutes as she looks to help Town improve yet further.
The future is looking good for Glen Preston’s side, then, and if Town can get a victory in their final group stage game against Chorley later this month, they could still make it through to the next round of the WNL Cup as one of the best ten runners-up…assuming, that is, that Burnley keep them off the top of the group.
But this experience has given Town a glimpse of just how much higher the level is if they do go on to get promoted this season.
To give full credit to Town, they recovered as well as could have been hoped after going three goals down inside 11 minutes. Burnley managed just one more goal in the first half which came through Charlie Chadwick in the 37th minute.
Town looked a lot more solid and a lot more themselves after the break, albeit attacking opportunities remained minimal, and held Burnley out until substitute Aimee Kelly added a quickfire brace in the dying minutes.
In that sense, this experience should serve Town well in showing them where they want to be — both as a team and as a club. It’s going to take a lot more hard work and investment, but the will seems to be there to get there.
Final score: Burnley 6-0 Huddersfield Town (Chadwick 6, 37, Cairns 7, Logan 11, Kelly 84, 86)
Town: Bethan Davies, Alise Gindra, Beth Stanfield, Autumn Housley, Rebecca Beresford, Rhema Lord-Mears (Evie Franks 83), Ella Duffield, Fliss Jones (Franc Brown 65), Hannah Burgess, Kate Mallin (Brierley Keane 83), Louise Biggins.
Unused substitutes: Evie Franks