Darlaston Town (1874) are delighted to announce that from the beginning of next season a Woman’s football team playing under the club’s name will be representing the club in Birmingham County Woman’s Football League.

The majority of the players have formed the team from last year’s third place in the West Midlands Div 1 South, Sedgley and Gornal United and have decided to come and play under the Darlaston name, and I am sure everyone will welcome them to the club.
The team brings an established setup and squad, with a vastly experienced management team, who have been involved at many levels including Premier and non-league clubs much higher up the National League Structure than ourselves.

As mentioned previously the ladies finished third in a Division of ten teams. Their playing record was played 18 games, winning twelve, drawing three and losing three. The Leagues winners Solihull United won seventeen of their eighteen games and drew their remaining game to Sedgely and Gornal United.

The team will be managed by David Ball a UEFA ‘B’ Licenced coach, sports therapist and qualified personal trainer with an extensive football management portfolio that spans over 20 years in both the men’s and women’s game.

Ball held positions within both the men’s and woman’s game at clubs such as West Bromwich Albion, Bilston Town, Stafford Ladies, Willenhall Town, Wolverhampton Sporting and most notably as manager and Director of football at Black Country Rangers F.C where he continued to work alongside his ‘right hand man’ Darren Turner.

Ball will be joined by Scott McKee as joint Managers of the team. Scott has also been a successful manager and coach within the woman’s game and is a qualified coach with FA Level 1 and 2 qualifications.

Scott is excited to have the opportunity to work as a partnership with Dave Ball and believes their combination of coaching and management skills will complement each other and drive Darlaston Ladies for promotion season after season aiming to reach West Midlands Regional League Premier division.

Joining David and Scott on the management team as Assistant Manager will be Darren Turner.

Darren successfully managed the Wolverhampton Wanders Women’s reserve side before stepping up to assist Ball with the clubs first team operations. And has assisted David through the success of his game for many years

Manager David Ball thoughts on last season

As a management team reflecting back over the last season we were very proud of the players and their achievements, although in the end we fell short of collecting any silverware we had to look at the distance the team had travelled in terms of their individual and collective development.

When Darren and I arrived at preseason we had seven players at training, however we were able to add some real quality to the group, I had made contact with a number of players Darren and I had worked with previously at Wolves whom I trusted and knew would be able to hit the ground running, we also fortunate enough to recruit players who’d played in the West Midland Premier and alongside this, we had some good players at the club already. The girls had been used to a more direct style of play, so they too also had to adapt to a new approach and further demands in regard to fitness levels.

It’s testament to the players that for a large part of the season they held top spot, unfortunately we were competing with two established sides in Kidderminster Harriers and Solihull United who had very strong seasons, Solihull eventually finishing as champions and Kidderminster completing a cup double, beating us in the league cup final.

The management team and the girls are excited at the opportunity of becoming part of the Darlaston family and joining a club with such a rich history and standing in the non-league game within the Black Country. We would like to thank the club for making us so welcome already, this move allows us to keep the nucleus of the girls together, to build a strong and unified outfit and move forward in our pursuit of reaching the West Midlands Premier league, where we feel we belong."

Here’s to new beginnings."