Playing at the grassroots level of the Women’s Football Pyramid in England is a topic that often goes unnoticed. At Beyond the Pitch, we aim to bring attention to this crucial aspect of the game. Brentford FC’s Sophie Troth has been instrumental in helping us highlight these grassroots experiences.
Sophie Troth has been at Brentford for ten years this summer, having penned her initial deal with the Bee’s in 2014. The Brentford Number Ten spoke exclusively to BTP about life as a grassroots footballer in England.
In her world outside of football, Sophie is a PE teacher, combining her love of sports with her actual job.
“It is tough as we’re grassroots level but train and play four times a week so it’s like a professional set up. But obviously all our jobs take priority as it’s our main source of income. But I’m also lucky that my job is involved in sports too as a teacher and the days I work and times I work don’t tend to affect football at all so I’m lucky to be able to do both and enjoy both.”
At a club like Brentford, you can really get that one club feeling between the men’s, women’s and all lower and wider levels of the club.
Brentford women have been able to play at their main stadium, the GTech Community Stadium twice now, with Troth starring in one of those fixtures back in 2022.
“The support is incredible. They give us the opportunity to use their facilities such as the RRPC. We get to play games at the GTECH, the social media side is great as they always promote our games and we’ve had such a boost in the amount of fans who come and watch us regularly now which is really boosting the women’s side too.”
“We’ve also had great support from some of the players who have come to watch our games and Thomas Frank who sends us lovely messages of support. Recently I feel we’ve really connected with the men’s side.”
Sadly, not all levels of Women’s Football in this country have the level of support that Brentford does, with Thornaby FC being saved at the eleventh hour by new ownership to prevent their Women and Girls teams from folding completely, which had been threatened under the previous ownership.
Recently, Manchester United, Blackburn, Reading, and Sheffield United have once again made headlines for all the wrong reasons in the world of women’s sports.
From Brentford’s point of view though, Troth firmly believes that nothing like that will happen to the side from Hounslow.
“I think it’s really disappointing after the growth of the women’s game and the amount of fans and support it attracts now, and I hope things can be put in place to stop this from happening again. I have no worries that this will happen to us, we have so much support and connection with the club.”
Finally, we addressed a five year plan of what Troth would like to see happen in the Women’s Game.
“I’d like to maybe see more teams in a league which means more teams promoted, especially within our step and above – it’s only one team promoted which makes promotion and climbing leagues a lot harder. I feel having more teams promoted allows for us and others to be in a league we deserve to be playing in and fighting in.”
Everyone at Beyond the Pitch expresses their gratitude to Sophie Troth for her time and wishes her the best of luck for the new season at Brentford FC.
Photo – https://www.brentfordfc.com/en/news/article/brentford-women-v-richmond-park-bedfont-sports
