West Lothian College hosted over 200 girls from local primary schools at a recent football festival. The festival, titled Road to Paris FIFA World Cup, was designed to celebrate the women’s game and encourage more young girls into football.
The festival was created and named in recognition of the Women’s National Team qualifying for the World Cup this summer, where the college’s women's team along with lecturer Martin McCann will travel to Paris to support them in their match against Argentina on 19 June.
The Primary 6 and 7 girls from East Calder Primary School, Uphall Primary School, Williamston Primary School, St Nicholas Primary School and Our Lady of Lourdes Primary received coaching sessions from the college students before taking part in a full tournament.
The event was held at the Tony Macaroni Arena, home of Livingston Football Club, and was created and run by the college’s own women’s team and students from its football development and personal fitness development courses.
Attending the event were special guests including Kirstie McIntosh of Hamilton Academical Football Club, Lori Gardner of Motherwell Football Club and Jamie-Lee Napier of Hibernian Football.
Martin McCann, sport and fitness lecturer at the college, said: “The students worked really hard to organise what was a fantastic event – it was great to see so many young girls engaging with football and they all did great, I think we definitely saw some future football stars.
I would also like to thank our special guests for coming along to support the event, it was hugely inspirational for the young people to meet some amazing professional footballers.”