Behind the Scenes with Liverpool Feds
The FA WNL North side have a model which is dying out in the professional game, but rather than falling away, hard work and a community spirit is seeing them thrive this season...
Liverpool Feds is like no other club remaining in the FA Women’s National League North.
While big names such as Newcastle United, who are full-time, came into the league via promotion this season, and other stalwarts such as Nottingham Forest have even moved to a hybrid model, the Feds don’t even pay their players.
Yet behind the ‘big four’ of Newcastle, Forest, Burnley and Wolves, they are currently best of the rest and sit nicely in the top half of the table.
With an array of players from the area who are looking for something outside the ever-growing world of professionalism and a mix of young players on dual registrations from local giants such as Liverpool and Manchester United, the Feds are thriving this season, and on Sunday have a chance to reach the third round of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup when they host fourth-tier Durham Cestria.
A win would guarantee them £23,000 in prize money for this season even if they lost in the third round, and considering General Manager Abby Pope – who also plays for the club – tells me the Leisure United facility we sit in on a chilly Thursday evening before training costs them £15,000 a year to use, it shows how far that prize money could go.
It’s not just Pope who also duals her playing role at the club with work behind the scenes. Captain Chantelle Thompson, who joins us later in the evening to chat, also helps out as the club’s Media Officer, while forward Emily Douglas is the Club Treasurer.
Situated south of Liverpool, the sports centre is a hive of activity in the evening as Feds players trickle through the door into the canteen to wait for training to start.
Despite their status, there are familiar names among the ranks. Ellie Stewart was a regular in the second tier in years gone by for Everton, Sunderland and Blackburn Rovers, while Ellie Fletcher, formerly of Manchester United’s youth team, Liverpool and Sheffield United, also plays alongside her NHS role.
Even manager Leanne Duffy, who joins for a sit down, formerly played for both Liverpool and Everton just before the FA Women’s Super League era began, winning two FA Cups, and they have certainly utilised their geographical location situated between two major football cities.
“I think it’s a constant battle, a moving target, to keep the gap where the gap is…”
“We know our lane, we know what lane we sit in,” says Duffy. “We know what brings us success and with our limitations, that drives our success in a way. I’d go as far to say every game we’ve played this season the club we’ve played against is paying their players, and we’re not. But that becomes part of your identity, it’s not all bad.”
Pope meanwhile has been at the club eight years and says she “wouldn’t want to be anywhere else”, and has the privilege of running the off-field affairs too as GM. She admits the prize money would be “big for us”, but is also wary of clubs across the tiers becoming too reliant on the FA Cup to fund their seasons.
She is also realistic about where Feds are at, and is keen to ensure they establish themselves as a successful Tier 3 side before thinking about life above that, having only been promoted in 2022.
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“I put together a five-year plan at the start of the season and I put five key words to it,” she says. “The ambition was to dream, that was next to the Barclays Women’s Championship logo. I’m not saying in five years we’ll be ready for that. Right now, we look at that and go ‘nah’. I’ve sat in webinars with clubs who want to apply for it just to sit and observe what the process is and I came off one evening and I just went ‘wow’.
“For us, success is looking away from that, success for us is Tier 3. There’s some strong teams in here right now but I think they will reach the Championship, this is a good level for us, the highest we can be at without being professional. I played in Tier 3 12 years ago as a 16-year-old and 16-year-old Abby does not get in Tier 3 now, it’s a different level and will only continue improving.
Pope says being so reliant on FA Cup prize money is a “horrible situation”, while Duffy says the extra funding over the past two seasons is “brilliant, but wrong at the same time”, in regards to how much it influences a club’s season at this level.
“You’re getting a taste of the men’s non-league game pressures, it’s almost becoming more important [than the league] and I’d have never ever said that before,” says the head coach.
They are though utilising what they do have to sustain themselves. Founded in 1991, originally as Liverpool Institute of Higher Education, Feds have become a well-known name in the women’s game and still offer a throwback for supporters looking for a relaxed, community environment on a Sunday afternoon at their Jericho Lane base.
Being solely independent, they can find their own sponsors, and on the day I visit them they’ve just announced a new sponsorship deal with TaP [A Talent Management company], along with their primary sponsor Douglas White Financial Planning. The daughter of Managing Director Chris Douglas is also in the club’s academy ranks.
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