An article on SSNews about Charlton folding included an interview with Hope Powell, and the idea that they may consider moving the Women's football league so they have a summer league, so as not to compete with men's football.

Any thoughts on that?

I'm all for it! No men's games to go to = some people will go and see women play.
Plus it's not so cold during summer as it is in Nov-March

I'm not sure about no men's games to go to - pre-season friendlies are already under way.

It does make sense as pitches are in sheet state from november to march and that's when most game are played.
Playing from April to October would be more logical.

But the mens pitches which the majority of womens teams use need time to be reseeded and recover. They would never allow womens football to be played in late May , June and much of July on mens teams pitches. There would need to be specialist pitches and grounds for womens clubs which no-one apart from Lincoln could afford. Apart from this the idea is great imo especially for those of us who follow mens teams as well

I meant no Premiership games.

Ok - you're forgiven

I think that would be better surely then games would be more likely to go ahead

I could show my shirts off then instead of hiding under 5 layers and alex scott to ask me if I was cold

I'dloke Alex to ask me if I was cold (as long as she'd help me to warm up )

She didn't offer unfortunately there's quite a size difference between us both as well

I was listening to TalkSport today, and they were talking about an article in today's papers - nothing in the Times, as far as I could see, so I can only report on what they were saying.

Apparently, they are considering changing the season in England to the summer.
They reckon this would improve attendances (as it would generally not compete with the men's game) and would lead to less games being postponed, as clubs where the women arrange to play are often concerned about women having a game and churning up the pitch so it's not so good for when the men play - ie, too many games being played in bad weather.

They chatted to ex-England star Marianne Spacey, who was all for it.
She was also not happy with a team like Arsenal having so many international players and being so dominant. She commented that if a team loses a couple of games early on, their chance of a league win is over.
She is in favour of the system the Americans have used, where players in their international squad are "spread around" to make the league more even.

My own thoughts here:

1. Summer footie - excellent. We'd get less postponed games for a start. Also, as Marianne Spacey said, they'd not have to compete with men for spectators apart from possibly 2010 WC season (but that will only last a few weeks).
But - don't teams relay their pitches etc? I believe Borehamwood relaid theirs last year so Arsenal couldn't play there for their last game. Do they do this regularly?

Also - will all women's footie move to the summer?
If it's only the Prem, then players who often have their own game on the same day as Prem games at the moment will be able to go and watch. Otherwise, we'll still be short of female spectators as many will still be playing their own games.

2. Having an international "pool" with their players spread around is out as far as I'm concerned. I assume Marainne, in her comment about Arsenal having 9 internationals was only concerned with England. She felt it would help their team with their players having to play in fairly equal squads each week.
Apart from the fact that I'm an Arsenal fan through and through, even if I've not followed women's footie for long, Arsenal are the only team I support. If we develop some excellent players over the next couple of years I want them to stay unless they decide to leave for whatever reason. A couple have left in the last year or so as they didn't like being bench-warmers, but that's their choice.

But - could Arsenal keep Emma Byrne, Julie Fleeting, Ciara Grant and Jayne Ludlow under this system?
And what if a couple of players like Marta (I know it's not likely - I'm just making a point) decided they'd like to live in London and play for Arsenal?
Would Marta be told she'd have to play for Watford or something?

3. Is it so bad that one team has so many good players anyway? It helped Arsenal become the first team to win the UEFA trophy last season. UIK would have to be covered by the same restrictions, and that wouldn't happen under the changes Marianne envisaged in the English league.
We had to manage without Kelly Smith in both legs of the final, but managed to win. And it didn't seem to harm England that much in the WWC either.

In fact, England's relative success in the WWC hindered Arsenal's performance in the UEFA cup this year.

Hope Powell, in the latest Fair Game magazine has said that it was obvious that some players had tired legs by the end of the WWC. Yet they all had to come back and start playing Prem games straight away - and Everton, as well as Arsenal, had to play UEFA games.
Between them, they could provide a decent England team, but Everton got knocked out in the group stages - but only just (maybe they'd have lasted longer if they'd had a bit of a rest - not sure about that), and Arsenal only lasted until the next round.

There are probably a few points I've missed here - but please give your comments - and if anyone has a link to a newspaper report about this, please post it

There was something on fa.com about this. Where the fa were meeting to discuss the women's game and what could be done to improve it. They were also talking about how league games could be televised after the figures during the w/c were good.

I was in too minds about changing the times of play but have since changed me mind. I could certainly make most of the home games if played in the summer when the men's season finished. But the men's game is always on and it would be interesting to see how they could do it.

I'm not however in favour of this : players have to be told where to play. What does it matter that Arsenal have nine England internationals in their team. Those player's choose to play there. People should not medal in teams affairs. If Arsenal didn't have the team they have , they certainly wouldn't of won the Uefa cup last season. I don't like the idea of the American system being thought of over here.

Summer League would be good, an american style players repartition would lead to an exodus to the WUSA or whatever name it will have I guess.

For me, the ideal would be to have the Premier league of ten/twelve teams in summer, or at least March to October and all the other leagues in the normal season as it is now. Womens football all the year round...excellent for the roving spectator like me without one special team - most players outside the very elite of the womens game may well prefer the summer to play the occasional tournament or have go on holiday or just get away from the game. Do most players want a five or six month off season then have everything packed into a brief season- I doubt it... there is a big difference IMO between the very top end of womens game which is really what this Summer thing is about, in order to try to capture fans in the mens off season and the vast majority of womens clubs and leagues who play for enjoyment not to establish a fan base and a possible TV deal.

The American league started by relegating players of the USWNT by the region they were from. So a K. Lilly ended up on the Boston team and a Mia Hamm ended up in D.C. Then they filled in their rosters with a college draft and minor league players. All teams have a cap, making them financial equals. Making it difficult to stack teams, and making selecting "the right kind of players" crucial. Then after the initial year they could trade under the cap pretty much however they wanted. This system also developed players like Abby Wambach, who wasn't much in college, but playing with Mia Hamm at D.C. developed her skills in massive ways. Personally in my humble, largely biased opinion, this makes for a more competitive league.

Having said that, I know that European leagues don't work like this and therefor trying to transform it into something similiar would be next to impossible.

First and foremost the league isn't just starting out, so relegating people would be weird.

Second, I get the impression that Arsenal is one of the only teams in the Prem that treats its women's team pretty well. So of course a Julie Fleeting wouldn't want to play for a more northern team and a Jayne Ludlow wouldn't want to play for a more southern team, unless of course these teams had similar support to what they had at Arsenal. This doesn't seem to be the way the men's league works, with the big four having the money, which equals buying the big players, which equals dominance of the league. So going a completely different way with the women's league would be a bit weird, and difficult because a cap is the key to equality.

Third, the geography situation is way different in many different ways. Several different teams are from the same cities, just different regions of the city which would also make relegations a bit weird. Also traveling in the U.K tends to be much easier and quicker, making it a much different situation than the American one.

Also you don't have the college draft system, but a development system through the clubs which would complicate things. So in all honesty, I don't know how anyone could sort these and several more issues out inorder to make the system work.

You also have the issue of not being competitive with Umea and the other European clubs that will not have to play by these rules. In the short term you're right they won't be competitive. But the American system requires you to manage your player selection really, really well. You pick a Kelly Smith or two and you build a team around them, people with the right attributes and chemistry. Two mediocre players that play well together, make themselves good players. And a good player with mediocre players that play well with them makes the good player great. And in the end teams that play exceptionally well together beat teams with a lot of individual talent. And this creates the sports dynasty, which may be a very American concept, I don't know. Again, it's all about team management and I don't know if the women's Prem is developed enough to deal with this kind of system, so that would be another massive hurdle.

If you think that it may only work in American sports, I don't know it seems to be the concept that the USWNT is built around. One or two stars and the rest of the team tends to be really good team players.

I don't know, the system makes sense to me, but clearly I'm comming at it from a completely different place so I understand if people disagree.

The summer idea to me seems like a good one, that's what the WNBA did. It helps not to have to compete, but also makes it a great option for families. Inorder to have women's games of different ages not compete couldn't you have like the younger girls play on Mon and Thur, semi-pro (?) play Tue and Fri, and Prem play Wed and Sat or something like that? I don't know exactly how it works, but you get what I mean a specific day of the week is for a specific level of play.

Obviously I don't know exactly how the Prem works, and I'm comming at this from a different place, but I also think the league has greater potentially then it may be reaching right now and somethings got to change inorder to reach that, just my two cents. I also don't have my team's roster on the line and maybe if I did I'd think differently.

I think this is the right philosophy, reminds me of Phil Jackson Chicago Bulls and their triple post offense back in the 90's when I was a teenager It's just that kind of evolution takes time and is not really compatible with european mentality because building a house brick by brick does not go with immediate results.

Pat:

I believe they intend to reduce the size of the Prem league from what they said - not sure to how many teams.
If it was to say, 10, that would mean 18 games - probably one a week then.

I like your thoughts about year-long women's footie - but what about the promotion and relegation?
The teams involved could end up playing all year - have a hard season getting promoted, then have to play another season without a break.

And - what about cup competitions?
The top teams have just come into the FA Cup in the last few weeks. What would you suggest for that?
I suppose it would give lesser teams a chance if the likes of Arsenal and Everton joined in out of their season - but maybe that could be got around by playing the latter rounds of the cups later in the Winter season, for the teams involved there - the top teams could get acclimatised by playing the cup games before the Prem starts.

Weip and shlj:

The US system might work if a league was starting out, but we found from the men's game that younger Arsenal players were struggling to adapt to getting into a team with superstar Thierry Henry - they were a bit overawed, but, despite all expectations are playing better now he's gone - they are playing a more natural game.
Arsenal ladies know they have to work to get into the first team; if the team was just left with Kelly Smith and Faye White, for instance, how would young Arsenal players and / or say, a couple of current Charlton players drafted in feel?
It might mean the league would be closer, but I don't think an English (or any UK) team would stand a chance in the UEFA cup the way things stand.

If the games are played in the Summer but with the same players, it would definitely attract more spectators, and Everton are approaching Arsenal in quality now, and Chelsea won't be far behind when they get going.
Three quality teams out of ten, with a few other clubs getting the support of the men's team - eg Liverpool and Watford, could make it a quality league.
And the more support it gets (spectator-wise), the more the men's clubs will help out their women's team maybe - they'd be getting publicity out of the men's normal season and therefore all the year round.

Very good points Twmcat...the promotion relegation thing would be difficult to resolve with the two seasons - I wonder if there would be promotion at all because I imagine that the FA would pick 10 teams to compete in the new Prem and stick with funding and financing semi-pro womens football with those elite teams, for a trial of 5 years. They would need to be in recognised football areas and probably still linked to mens clubs in name at least but not funded by the mens club . They would also need to be spread evenly around the country. I could see the following clubs being candidates ....Arsenal, Everton, Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff, Donny, Birmingham, Chelsea, Portsmouth, Lincoln with Watford , Fulham, Liverpool and Forest as possible extras or alternatives. All these are well run clubs with great traditions of bringing through young players

shlj- The 90's Chicago Bulls are the greatest example of this mentality by far. They played beautiful, beautiful basketball, and made Michael Jordan way better than he could have been without great team support. But you're right this system does take a long time to develop, it also probably requires a brillant coach like Phil Jackson.

twmcat- In the American System if someone can't hang with Thierry Henry or Kelly Smith, or really improve the stars game you get rid of them and find someone with the chops to improve in the system. It doesn't mean that the person you trade away is bad, they just don't have the attributes that create chemistry with the star. Ultimately if they are good enough, they find their perfect fit and they become better because of it. And often with people with potential, when they play with a great player it helps take them to the next level because they can learn so much from them.

But like shlj said this system is a brick by brick one, so it will take years, and you won't have a chance in Uefa for awhile. And from what I've heard Arsenal's stars do seem to have some chemistry (which is rare for great players) so I completely understand why you don't want to change it.

Pat: It never occurred to me they'd be keeping the same teams for 5 years or whatever

weip: I'm not sure if you mean the Arsenal men's team, but if you do, TH is a superstar, and has now been replaced by Cesc Fabregas as one of the top players in the Premiership.
Cesc is still only 20, TH is 30, and the team is growing around him.

i dont know what to think about it

it could be good bud i think at the hot weather the girls gonna have to play in and when they have

would the womens season be at the same time asthe swedish then?

Hot weather never have that here

If it did happen it might clash with the Swedish league , I'm not sure when there league runs from.

with the Arsenal Ladies playng in the summer would there be a special summer kit for them to wear ...

Conner honestly

What's wrong with that smithy?

I'm already designing the kit in my mind