Dunfermline Press | Sport | Footy girls are Barca-bound

Thursday, 21st August, 2008

Published: Thursday, 28th February, 2008 08:20

Footy girls are Barca-bound

DUNFERMLINE Athletic Girls Football Club are preparing to swap their training ground at Pitreavie for 13 football pitches in Spain where they will compete in a prestigious tournament.

The under-17s team will showcase their talents when they battle it out with up to 30 teams from around the world in the Copa Catalunya Tournament just outside Barcelona.

The girls are hoping they can follow on from the success of last year’s under-15s team, which reached the last 16 of the Gothia Cup in Sweden.

Club secretary Elaine Montignani said, “We did really well last year and hopefully we will go through and win this time. The girls are very excited, some of them went to Sweden last year but there are some girls going who haven’t been to a tournament abroad.”

Twenty-one girls from the team, who are all Fifers coached by Garry Herkes, will take part in the five-day tournament – five of whom are from the under-15s team.

They will play their games across 13 different pitches at a large park around one hour from Barcelona.

The girls will fly out on Saturday 5th July and will have most of Sunday to enjoy the Spanish sights before the tournament begins on Monday.

The team currently plays in the East Central League coming up against teams including Falkirk, St Johnstone and Hibs.

To raise funds for their trip the girls have been taking part in various fund-raising activities including bag packing and collections at shops, and they also hope to hold a race night in April to complete the fund-raising.

However, the girls will have to adopt a slightly different attire for one of their fund-raising ventures when they switch their football boots for high heels for a fashion show at the Royal British Legion in Dunfermline on 7th March.

They will transform themselves from footballers to models in a bid to reach their target, which is for every girl participating in the tournament not to have to pay anything towards the trip.

Elaine, whose daughter Kirsty is part of the team going to Spain, added, “We’re taking quite a big support. Including players there will be about 48-49 people going.”

Kirsty (15), a fourth year pupil at Queen Anne High School, was part of the successful team in Sweden last year and has participated in various other tournaments.

The winning team will be presented with the tournament trophy on the Friday (11th July).

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