DIVA DEMANDS: Moneyfields aiming high

Portsmouth based Division One South West side Moneyfields formed in 2017. With several professional clubs around them – Portsmouth, Southampton, AFC Bournemouth – they are very much the small club of the south coast. 

They’re also the fairytale. Building from scratch with little investment, they’ve made their way up the pyramid and are currently challenging for promotion to Tier 3.  

Next weekend they take on Cheadle Town Stingers in the FA Women’s National League (FAWNL) Plate Final. Clare McEwen learns more about this exciting and ambitious side.

Much of Moneyfields’ success is thanks to manager Karl Watson who has been with the club since the start. A former Youth Development Officer at Portsmouth and part of the first team coaching staff, Watson was at Pompey when the team won Tier 3 in 2014-15.

When Moneyfields approached him to start the women’s team, he had what he describes as “a load of diva demands”.

“I was interested but only if we didn’t pay subs and we played in the stadium – we’re not going to be treated like second-class citizens because it’s women’s football. 

“I’m going to be ambitious and if the club are willing to support me, three promotions in three seasons and then get to Tier 3. That’s my vision for this thing and if you want it and you’re going to back it and support me and let me run with it, then I’m interested.

“They agreed and I took the job from there.”

In those early days, Watson did everything himself – raising money, driving the bus, finding sponsorship, and all the other administrative tasks that come with running a football team.

In the last few years, the ambitious team have earned multiple promotions, reached the fourth round of the FA Cup (playing London City Lionesses), repeatedly won the Portsmouth Senior Cup, and secured equal pay for the women, making them semi-professional like their male counterparts.

Fast, front-footed, fearless

I ask first team coach Jack Randall what his philosophy as a coach is and how his Moneyfields team play:

“My philosophy as a coach is understanding what you want from that group [of players].

“For me personally, you can’t be playing in one system or one exact way you want to do things. I think you’ve got to complement the group you have. Fortunately the group we have definitely complements the way we want to play.

“But, to be honest, if we wanted to change it, they could do that as well because they’re exceptional. 

“It’s fast paced. We want to be front-footed, we want to be on the ball as much as possible and we just want to be exciting.

“We don’t want to be in nil-nil games. We want to be in games where there’s going to be goals for you to watch. There’s going to be moments and highlights put out for people to see.

“Yeah, we want to be exciting, that’s the word I’d go for. That’s the philosophy, it’s exciting. 

“I think that matches perfectly with Karl’s mission because he said something really similar in our first conversation. 

“When he spoke to me about coming in it was that we wanted to be front-footed. We want to be in your face, you want to be the team, that’s gonna run and run and run until we can’t run anymore. And then we’re gonna have the ball and then we’re gonna score a great goal.”

I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to watch Moneyfields play.

Finding the niche

I’m always on the look out for a coach’s perspective because I find their insights fascinating, so I ask Randall what he looks for in a player that maybe the bigger teams around him don’t see. 

And I love his answer:

“I think understanding everyone’s niche. I mean, that’s a great question because I think not a lot of people genuinely think there’s something in everyone and there really is.

“It’s about balancing the squad perfectly – which is always helpful.

“I think you’ve got to find what makes that person tick off the ball. If they’re not happy you’re not going to get the best out of that player. 

“It’s understanding there’s a quality in everyone, even if it’s not an obvious quality. And it’s understanding how you can affect that and make them fit into that system of what we want. 

“The biggest thing for me, and it’s such a cliché, but just someone that wants to work hard and enjoys, I wouldn’t say the ugly side because for us it’s a pretty side of it, but the side of the game where if we don’t have the ball, we want to enjoy being off the ball as much as we do on it.

“That’s our identity. That’s what we want to look for.”

Pull of the underdog

Moneyfields’ captain Ali Hall brings a wealth of experience from Aston Villa, Stoke City, Portsmouth, and AFC Bournemouth (who she played for last season). So what brought her to the south coast’s lesser known team?

“After leaving Bournemouth, I wanted to stay in Tier 4 and Moneyfields was a team that instantly stood out to me. 

“Having played against them, the games against them were easily the hardest. They were very tricky games. We lost a Cup game to them as well. I remember it well and you could see that they’re incredibly organised, that the coaches had done a lot of preparation for those games, the tactical awareness.

“When you play against teams like that, you always think, could I see myself playing with those players?

“I was lucky, I knew a couple of the girls anyway, so having conversations with them and seeing what they thought, if they were happy, if they thought it would be a good place for me as well, was important.

“So those were the initial things that really stood out and then conversations with Karl, getting involved in some training sessions. I think it was a pretty easy decision in the end.”

Two percent club

I ask Hall what she thinks Moneyfields have as a team that makes them able to compete with the bigger names.

“First of all, we have the quality. But I think it’s the mindset. The mindset that you get from staff and from players at a smaller club without a huge name is something different. 

“Nothing is just given to you. I’m not saying that players at bigger clubs don’t work hard, because I’ve been there and you have to work hard, but there’s that mindset of wanting to show you are good enough [in smaller clubs]. 

“That sometimes gives you that extra two, three percent in games that perhaps you don’t necessarily get at other clubs. And I think I can speak to that having played on both sides –  having played at a club that no one knows the name of and having played at clubs that are also huge. I think that’s probably what the difference is in a club like this.”

Come and see

“I think it’s the wonderful storyline of being the underdog club. We are that wonderful storyline of look at this small club. Well, hang on a second, they’ve got a bit about them. They’ve been doing quite well at this level and now they’re pushing to go up. I think it’s exciting. Come and see what our club is about.”

You can do just that on Sunday 29th March as Moneyfields face Cheadle Town Stingers in the FAWNL Plate Final.
Venue: Arbour Park, Slough.
Kick off: 2pm
Tickets are available now: https://app.fanbaseclub.com/Fan/Tickets/SelectType?fixtureId=17385

Photo credits: Tom Phillips and Jason Brown