St Mary’s Welcomes QPR Women’s College Academy to Campus

The Women’s High-Performance Centre at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (SMU) recently welcomed QPR women’s College Academy to tour the campus, attend talks and take part in a practical session in our Sport Centre.

Hosted in collaboration between the Chelsea FC Foundation Academic Lead for Women’s Football and the FA Women’s High-Performance Centre, the attendees had an opportunity to look around campus and view the sport facilities at SMU, before hearing from speakers from the Wider Participation team and the academic programmes.

Following this, the QPR Academy students had the opportunity to interact with current Simmies and test some of the performance analysis equipment in our Performance Education Centre during their practical session.

Sport St Mary’s Coach Development Officer Craig Taylor said, “This was a fantastic event, it was great to see the players engaging throughout the day. Thank you to Mandip Birk, Tom Simms, Rhi Galvin, and all the students who supported for their contributions on the day, with a special thanks to Becky Shubber-Barton for leading on and delivering a fantastic event.”

The aim of The St Mary’s FA Women’s High Performance Football Centre (WHPFC) is to support and drive The FA’s ambition to increase the number of qualified coaches and improve the quality of coaching, both central to the growth of the women’s game.

The centre provides an educational and community-based setting to recruit, develop and deploy coaches, who will lead and inspire player development specifically in the women’s and girls’ game.