In response to HTAFC's announcement of Sunday 10th August.

 

The ladies club first started playing in 1988 under the name Huddersfield Ladies FC. Huddersfield Town Girls were founded later circa 1990. The setting up of the girls team was organised by Kirklees Council's Football Development Officer - Dai Jones, who worked with Huddersfield Town to set up the club. He then instigated the merger of the two clubs in 1992, again with the full knowledge of Huddersfield Town, to form Huddersfield Town Ladies FC.

 

In all of those 26 years, we have always worn the traditional blue and white stripes of our local club and carried their club crest with the letters HTLFC replacing their own name.

 

We are a fully self funded club and have 3 thriving and extremely successful junior girls teams and 2 open age teams, with players ages ranging from 10 upwards.

 

We are not a professional club but a professionally run amateur outfit. We raise funds through player’s subscriptions, kit sponsorship and general additional fundraising. No member of our committee, playing or coaching staff is paid, we are all volunteers.

 

We have seen considerable success over recent years. The first team ladies gained promotion in 2010/11 season when winning the North East Regional Women’s Premier League and Cup double.  Last season they again gained promotion from the Northern Women’s Combination League to the FA Women’s Premier League North – the highest league in Women’s winter football. 

 

Huddersfield Town approached us in late 2009 and we met with them on a number of occasions. At their suggestion, we formed an “official link” with them in March 2010 and became their official ladies team.

 

In the past, HTAFC had for many years given us free tickets for their home games. At the start of the 2013/14 season the number of tickets per game was reduced, we did not ask and were not told why. The tickets have not been forthcoming this season.  In the past they also sold us kits at cost price until these became, simply too expensive.

 

After gaining promotion in 2011, they encouraged us to play our home games at Canalside which we did for the 2011/12 season. Unfortunately, just one month before the start of the 2012/13 season they advised that Canalside was not available to us and this caused us extreme difficulty in finding a new and suitable home ground with the correct ground grading for the start of that season. 

 

Following promotion in May, we made contact with HTAFC and asked if it was possible that they could offer us some support by way of kit, or make some contribution to the additional costs relating to our promotion.  Upon gaining promotion we had already committed to the upgrading of our home ground at Storthes Hall where over the close season, floodlights have been installed and a roof will soon be added to cover the existing seating. Both of these are ground grading requirements of the FA Women’s Premier league and were supported with a grant from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund as well as a significant contribution from the Leslie Sports Foundation.

 

After receiving a fairly negative response to our request for some help, Huddersfield Town Ladies had the ‘audacity’ to send an email questioning HTAFC’s lack of support and it appears that someone has taken umbrage to this and on Thursday 7^th August the club received a letter from the HTAFC Board giving notice that from 31^st May 2015 we would not be able to:

 

Represent them as their official ladies club

 

Wear a kit similar to theirs

 

Use their official crest or name

 

It also stated that the notice period gave us sufficient time to ‘procure a different kit’.

 

To re-kit the entire club of 80 plus girls will, we estimate, cost up to £10,000. Money that we do not have!

 

The letter received was not the guarded statement of the HTAFC web site issued on  Sunday 10^th August, but a strict legally worded document which left us in no doubt as to their intentions.

 

Their statement of the 10^th August was an afterthought, and only came out because someone, in the know, asked Nigel Clibbens a question on twitter on the Sunday morning regarding the ladies team. This was then seen by Town fans, who took up our cause and this forced the club into making the announcement.

 

As a club, we have maintained a dignified silence until now, preferring to take legal advice as well as making contact with the FA and our own FA Women’s Premier league.  HTAFC have asked us to confirm in writing that we will agree to their terms, and we will respond in our own time.

 

The whole situation is galling and particularly when in HTAFC’s new kit launch, they used the image via their Twitter feed of a young girl to promote it, with the words “I’m seven and a half and I want to play for Town”. Maybe now she’ll be denied that opportunity.  As a club we have recently started a Monday night Development Centre at Storthes Hall, which we run for girls aged 7 to 11 years old!

 

Dean Hoyle is well known and has been rightly praised for his tremendous charity work on behalf of children and given this, we are frankly astonished that he has allowed his board of directors to take this action. He knows how to make contact with the club, and maybe it is not too late for him to extricate his board from this unpleasant and embarrassing situation. We would be happy to meet with him at a time and place of his choosing.

 

Further information on the club can be found at htlfc.org.uk, via twitter @huddstownladies, through our Facebook page Huddersfield Town Ladies Football Club, or via email to [email protected]

 

We would very much like Town fans to get behind our campaign and any contributions to our fighting fund would be greatly appreciated.