For Fylde Women, their season was over at the beginning of April when they narrowly lost out to Burnley in second round of the Vitality Women’s FA Cup. But for Joint-Managers, Kim Turner and Danielle Young, there has been no time to take the foot off the gas as they put plans in place for the new season.

In recent weeks, Kim and Danielle have had several discussions with the AFC Fylde hierarchy to map out the vision for Fylde Women. With the financial backing and support of the Chairman, the Women are now gearing themselves up for a big promotion push in the new 21/22 National League Northern Premier Division.

Danielle Young spoke exclusively to afcfylde.co.uk, to explain the work that has been going on behind-the-scenes. She said:

“Myself and Kim have had lots of really positive talks with both the Chief Exec[utive] and Chairman about the budget and plans for next season. The meetings that we have had have enabled us to share our vision on where we want it to go and what it takes to get there. David has given us his full backing, so we are really appreciative and thankful of that.

“The Men’s team and the Academy have got a really good group of people, and we want to add the Women’s team onto that to create a real family-feel club. We like to play an attractive style-of-play that runs throughout the Club – fast, exciting, attacking football – so we would like to get to a place where fans of the men’s team will enjoy coming and getting a taste of our match day experience.

“Improving facilities is going to be important and, therefore, revamping Kellamergh Park is something that we are currently looking at. The pitch is amazing and has been for some time, but away from that, it needs some work doing to it to make sure the environment matches our ambitions.

“Having financial support from above is great because a lot of the teams in our league have that support from the Club, so this enables us to compete with the next levels up.

“Part of the application process to compete in a higher league comes down to financial support; it isn’t just about performance. So this gives us reassurance that if we do go on to win the league next year, our application will be successful.”

With a pre-season return date scheduled for the first week in July and a preliminary date of Sunday,15th.August for the first league game, conversations around recruitment and pre-season are underway. The togetherness shown by the team throughout the pandemic has been regularly praised by the two managers, and it is that unity that Danielle is keen to retain when recruiting new players ahead of the new season:

“We are always looking to strengthen, but it’s definitely not going to be an overhaul – that’s not how we work. We signed nine players last season so we have to make sure that the players fit into the culture here. Me and Kim are obviously interested in the performance aspects and what they do on the field, but we recruit the person and how they can positively influence the environment. Team ethos is everything, so we are cautious of bringing anyone in that could break that.

“Going into the new season, we are confident – with the backing that we’ve got; the style of play that we play and the morale within the camp.

Something that has also been discussed is trying to get more fans watching the Women’s team and following them on their journey. Danielle believes the improvements that will be made will help get more Fylde fans back on the terraces at Kellamergh Park:

“That is another area that we have spoken about, really trying to push our games next season. The Fylde Coast is obviously not the biggest catchment area, but on the flip side it puts us in a good position in the sense that there aren’t too many other teams in the area operating at our level. We hope that with us not being able to go out and watch games of football for so long, we can get some new faces attending.

“Something that we have agreed with the Club is focusing on our bigger games throughout the season and really pushing them. Ideally, that will be when the Men’s team is away, so hopefully we can attract those that support the Men’s team who cant travel to away matches.”