The story of our Wildcats starts in the winter of 2017, on a rainy Sunday morning at our old home the Garrison Ground. Having received a number of inquiries from parents as to if we offered football for anyone below the age of 8, our Vice Chairman Tony began a small session to accommodate these girls. Ladies player Cesca helped coach the girls and between her and Tony they put together fun sessions for our youngest ever group of players. The girls that came along soon told their friends and before too long there became an established group of young Flyers training every week.

There was clearly a growing enthusiasm for the sport at such a young age and this was soon noticed by the FA, who in the spring of 2018 launched their Wildcat initiative to give more girls the chance to play football. Having already started a program of a similar nature, Flyers utilised this opportunity and created a center in 2018, moving to Perins School to deliver these sessions. The centre was run with the help of volunteer coaches throughout the club and across the 16 weeks of coaching, the centre grew to have 60 girls attend from the ages of 5 - 11. The center was such a success that we became the first recipients of Wildcat Centre of the Year from Hampshire FA for 2018. From this fabulous training programme, the club were able to create an Under 9 team, as well as our first ever Under 8 teams to compete in mini-tournaments. In addition to this, Flyers didn't stop at the end of the 16-week Wildcats programme, and instead continued to provide training throughout the winter of 2018/19 for the younger teams and any new players.

The momentum of our Wildcats continued through to the spring and summer of 2019 and as we launched our second Wildcats programme. We began these sessions at River Park Leisure Centre but soon had to move to our new home of King Geroge to accommodate the ever-expanding number of players. Further to this, the club had to deliver 2 centres in 2019, splitting the sessions by age, in order to cope with the volume of girls turning up each week. From this we have grown to be the biggest Wildcats centre in Hampshire, seeing 80 girls attend at least 2 sessions across the 16-week program in 2019. The astounding aspect to our 2019 centre was that even up to the last week, there was at least 1 new girl at training, such was the enthusiasm for the sport and the positive word of mouth generated by our current Wildcats. The 2019 centre was finished off with an Under 8 and Under 9 tournament which saw Flyers enter an incredible 5 teams.

But we still have space for more! We would love any girl from the age of 5 to 8 to come and join our Wildcats set up. Training is on a Sunday morning at King George Pitches in Winchester from 10:30am - 11:30am, starting on September 1st 2019 and we also offer training through our partners Football Coaching 4 Girls which is on Tuesday evenings at River Park Leisure Centre from 4:30-5:30pm. If you would like any more information or want to join our Wildcats then please contact our Vice Chairman and Wildcats coordinator Tony at: tonyspurs.panteli@outlook.com or send the club an email at winchesterflyers@gmail.com