Emirates FA Cup debutants Woodley United were formed from three clubs joining forces

As Woodley United prepare to make their Emirates FA Cup bow on Saturday against Tuffley Rovers, we hear about how the Berkshire-based club came about.

General manager Mark Rozzier takes us through their community-centred formation and their high ambitions for the future.

“We’re a town of 26,000 people, so for a town of our size we want to be a part of the Emirates FA Cup and we’re pleased that we’ve now got a chance after a successful season last term resulted in promotion to the Hellenic Premier Division for the first time.

But there’s an interesting story behind how we came about, as Woodley previously had a number of clubs all competing against each other.

We had five clubs including Woodley United Ladies, Woodley Town and Woodley Hammers, both with youth and adult male teams who all agreed that they should work together to create one club in the town.

It all started in 2011 over the provision of women’s football, as one club had a women’s senior team, one had an U18s team and one had an U16s team. The clubs agreed that there was no real pathway for these players and created Woodley United Ladies and seeded all their teams into one club so there was a direct pathway for progression and development of female football.

Woodley United FC was then formed two years ago, putting all of the teams of United Ladies, Town and Hammers together and pooling resources so that we were all working better together. It was great to put aside old rivalries and form one club for the benefit of the community. There are now 30 youth and adult teams representing the club and making football more accessible for more people.

It was the way forward and with the support of the council and the Football Foundation we were able to get a 3G pitch along with Reading University to improve their facilities and be used by our players.

Personally, I was first involved with Woodley Town back in 1987, albeit not a very good footballer but not a bad administrator!

At the time, we had a team at the lowest level of the Reading & District Football League and that team has worked its way through to play Step 5 football this season in the space of 20 years, which is not bad going.

 

We’re attracting more local players and seven of our U18s from last season are now pushing to make the jump to men’s football and there’s no doubt they will be part of the first team in the future.

We want to give our youth players a pathway into men’s football with the club and we have some of the younger lads parallel-training with the men’s team in the week. 

That will make the transition easier if they do go into the men’s squad in the future as they’re seen by the first team players and their faces are known by the management team which can only be a good thing.

We do a lot of work in the community, including a very successful girls’ festival and only last week we had 20 girls attending and providing support for football sessions run by Sport in Mind.

In terms of Saturday’s FA Cup tie, we’re under no illusions of how tough the game is going to be, so let’s just go for it.

We’re hoping we can get some of our U8s to be mascots for the day and that we can get a good crowd, so everyone is looking forward to it.”