Curzon Ladies 7 a side tournament was a successful run out for all the teams involved, in the sweltering heat the two leagues were played at a high tempo with all showing great commitment. Four Curzon teams, Man City, Preston North End, OHH Lincoln City, Walsall Salford Sports Village and two Burnley teams made the tournament a competitive event.

The day allowed all the Curzon players to get a lot of good sharp pre-season football and the opponents were all quality teams.

Qualifying was always going to be tough with just four places for the semi-final slots, Winning group 1 was OHH Lincoln City coming runners up in the Northern Premier League last season with many 1st team players taking part, They were strong and powerful and deserve to win the group, runners –up were Curzon whom fielded some guest players from Everton reserves, played well in patches and needed to improve for the Semi final against the group 2 winners Man City who also had guest players from Blackburn Rovers, City were strong in their group and powered pass all teams runners up were Preston North End which made all teams in the semi’s Northern Premier teams.

Curzon Ashton Ladies did the football club proud, at Wembley stadium. The dream day started with a coach journey on England’s 1st team coach into the stadium to the dressing room area, a tournament kit was provided by sponsor Umbro, and the teams walked out at Wembley to the national anthem. The eight team tournament was made up of two groups of four, so there was little margin for error to reach the semi-final.

The Ladies went into the 2008/09 Season having been promoted to the Lancashire League Division 1 following on from their season as Division 2 Runners Up.

We were looking to push on and were in search of top honours this season with essentially a new team. Only five players stayed on from last season Andi Bagshaw, Kate Bryan, Kay Nightingale, Kelly Wood and Player/Assistant Manager Lesley English were the core of the team and all proved to be invaluable. Lots Of new players came and went through the season and in total around 35 Players were used.

The Ladies began the season Away at Wigan Athletic who the previous season had beaten us to the division 2 League so the we wanted to get even with them, and did with a well fought 3-1 victory with the new look team and playing in a 3-5-2 formation.

By Kirk Robertson.

After two years as Chairman at Curzon Ladies, a time that I have thoroughly enjoyed, I have decided to step down from the position. When I picked up the reigns we had just been relegated from the Northern Premiership and the vacant chairman’s post was being filled by the then Manager Dave Ryan. It is always difficult when a team drops a league and it was vital to arrest and indeed reverse the decline. This was done with the fantastic help of the manager players and committee. In a Championship season the team won every match except the last one which was played well after the season had effectively ended for Curzon.

Mark Bradshaw took over the Management of the Ladies for the 08/09 season with the sole task of keeping them in the Premiership league while the team was strengthened. It was a particularly challenging role due to the fact that our two main strikers form the championship team were no longer available. Mark and his team worked tirelessly in training and recruiting new players. Wayne Salkeld and Luke Turner shared the pressure admirably with Mark. After a very tough start results finally started to go our way towards mid season with some wins and draws against some of the stronger opposition in the league as new experienced players were added to the squad. The team also had a very good FA Cup run including an excellent win at Lincoln that was spoilt due to a registration technicality (I still think we were right unfortunately the FA panel didn’t agree). Certainly if the final squad had started the season then we would have finished much more comfortably.