Forest Women are no strangers to the top of the table. The dream of climbing the ranks to the Women’s Super League is aspirational, but with the recent announcement that Nottingham Forest Women will be a full-professional club by 2025/26, now feels within reach. Megan Hill caught up with Amber Wildgust, Head of Women and Girls Football at Nottingham Forest, to find out what turning pro means for the future of the club, both on and off the pitch.
After a league win in 2022/23 (a narrow loss in the playoff saw them miss out on promotion), and a promising performance in 2023/24 that left them just shy of the top spot, this year their sights are firmly set on promotion to the UK’s second-flight division of women's football, the Barclays Women’s Championship. The club announced the news of becoming a full-professional club in July, but the development has been years in the making – a product of the hard work of staff and players and an influx of investment from big boss Marinakis.
Amber joined the club in 2023 and has played a pivotal role in driving the transition. “[Forest Women] has been a very sustainable investment for the last couple of years,” she explains. “With the growth of women's football coming to a head, it felt like now or never for us to push on and secure promotion to the Championship and ultimately the Super League. This has been a long time coming. It was just a matter of asking: ‘When are we really going to kick this on?’ And it just felt right to do it now.”
A club does not turn professional overnight. Amber explains that last season was pivotal for building the foundations for the 24/25 season, “We focused on building blocks: doing the hybrid model, getting the right players on the pitch and the right staff in the building.”
At this point, Head Coach Carly Davies pops her head in for a quick confer – it’s transfer deadline day and the team are busy rounding out their promotion-hunting squad. Naturally, the investment in the club will be largely spent on attracting and retaining quality players. This season, all Nottingham Forest Women’s players will be able to give up their day jobs in favour of full-time football. Until now, players were juggling full-time employment with an intense training schedule leaving them little time for crucial rest and recovery. Amber explains, “We were only getting a snapshot of them in the evening after a long day at work – which is not necessarily beneficial and they weren’t always able to give us their 100%. Now that we have more access to them as players, we'll be able to look after their nutrition, their sleep, and their physical performance.”
The new home ground is a win for the players, who get to play on a fantastic pitch with a great atmosphere. A win for the staff, who have the infrastructure to do their best work, and a win for the fans who now have another opportunity to access the infamous City Ground.
New investment also means swanky new facilities. The Women’s team have taken up sticks at the recently redeveloped Holme Road training ground, once host to Cloughy’s Champions League winning side – here’s hoping Amber’s team find the same good fortune there!
The renovation saw the addition of two grass pitches and a goalkeeping area exclusively for the women's team. And more improvements are in the pipeline, “We're redeveloping Holme Road as a women's and girls centre and there are lots of exciting ideas being proposed, so who knows what the future could look like in that space for women's football.”
And the cherry on top: match days at home now means a trip to The City Ground. Which, suffice to say, Amber and the team are pretty pleased about: “Well, it's ridiculous, isn't it? It's the stuff that you dream of as a kid. It’s really cool. We really enjoy it there.” But despite being the stuff of dreams, it was also the only logical development. “The women's team should play in the main stadium. That just makes sense and that's why we've done it.”
The new home ground is a win for the players, who get to play on a fantastic pitch with a great atmosphere. A win for the staff, who have the infrastructure to do their best work, and a win for the fans who now have another opportunity to access the infamous City Ground.
Over the years, Forest Women have built up a loyal fan base in their previous ground at Long Eaton. The hope is that playing at The City Ground makes the game accessible for a new wave of fans. If you’re a fan missing out on tickets for the sell-out men’s games, go and watch the women's games. Or if the effin’, jeffin’ and chants associated with the men’s game aren’t your thing, Amber points out that the women's game might be more appropriate, “It's not as loud, and there's more space – it's a lot more child-friendly shall we say.”
That is not to say the atmosphere is any less electric. “When they sing Mull of Kintyre it puts the hairs on the back of your neck up. It's fantastic. Plus Carly's got the players playing a fantastic brand and identity and style of football which is great to watch – and we're scoring a few goals off the end of it too, which everyone can enjoy celebrating!”
Accessibility is a foremost consideration in everything Amber and her team are building. The club are constantly evaluating their processes to make the game more accessible, especially for young talent. For example, girls' academy training used to happen on the outskirts of the city, which meant those without access to a car and parents/guardians with free time to take them were unable to participate. Now, training takes place on the grounds of the Girls High School, which means it is accessible via car, bus, tram, and foot.
However Amber and her team don’t want to simply provide access, but also excellence. Amber and Dave Long, Head of Girls Academy, just returned from a trip to Lyon to observe their girl’s academy. The trip was eye-opening for Amber, “Lyon’s girls' program is very much aligned with the boys’ program, which is what we're trying to do here at Forest. We are visiting loads of different European clubs because we want to be different; we don't just want to copy what Man City, Arsenal, or Chelsea are doing. We want to go to clubs such as Real Betis, Benfica, and Olympiarchos to see what those clubs are doing and if there's anything that we can take back to Nottingham.”
Doing things differently on and off the pitch is a big part of the Nottingham Forest philosophy. Amber explains, “We want to be innovative because our first team needs to have a strong pathway. And it's also important for the city for us to be able to give girls an opportunity to play professional football. Even if they don't go on to play football, I can guarantee they'll go on to be fantastic people. I think playing sport develops some fantastic characteristics to take into life and that's what we want to hopefully provide for Nottingham.”
This commitment to innovation is a shared value amongst all staff and players at Forest Women. Amber talks of her club’s contributions to the women's game with pride, “We want to be relentless in our pursuit of making sure that girls can play football, relentless in our pursuit of female health research, and relentless in making sure that girls feel comfortable talking about their ovarian hormone profiles, menstrual cycles, bra health and things like that.”
Amber expects the same fierce determination from her players on the pitch, “Last season, we were only winning games by one or two goals but that’s not gonna be enough this year. We want to be relentless in scoring lots of goals in games.” The team’s 9-goal win over Stourbridge at the start of the season indicates that Amber’s message is being received.
The club’s sites remain firmly set on promotion to the Barclays Championship, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a good time getting there. “I hope we entertain people. I hope they come to the games and they enjoy it as much as we do. Ultimately, we want players and staff within the building to be proud to be playing and working for Forest and we want fans to be proud of us and proud to be from Nottingham.”
Forest Women play Stoke City Ladies at The City Ground on Sunday 17 November 2024
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