The Community Trust is addressing inequality by providing Cardiac Screening for all female footballers involved with the organisation.
With the help of funding from Westfield Health, APLUS Medical Services & Training and a donation from former England player Tony Currie, cardiograms are being provided for players within the girls’ pathway and the Education Football Programme.
Jayne Bacon, head of community at the Trust, explained why they felt it was important to test for Cardiovascular Disease. She said: “We recognised through our work that for male footballers, screening is mandatory., so heart screening becomes part of normal daily life.
“We realised that from a health and well-being point of view, this just isn’t happening in the same way in the women’s game. Here at Chesterfield Football Club and at the Trust, we’re very much about levelling up that level playing field. We want to be able to look at, across the game, offering opportunities to men, women, young girls, young lads, with equality.
“We started to look at it from the well-being of our young players, looking after their emotional health, their mental health and their physical health.”
Explaining the process involved, Jayne said: “Along with Michelle Slater, our women and girls football lead, and physio Tony Denton, who works alongside us here at the Trust, we started to have some conversations about how we can make this happen.
“We started to look at funding opportunities and it was more complicated than we’d hoped, but in the end we pooled resources, got a really good application in to Westfield Healthcare and we were delighted to be successful to get that funding.
“With that funding that then enabled us to go ahead with what I consider to be a groundbreaking initiative and I’m very passionate and really proud of the programme.
“All our women and girls have been heart screened as a partnership opportunity. Their families came along, we held it here in the Trust at Chesterfield Football Club in a really happy, healthy environment, with lots of support there.
“The first team manager for the women’s team, Andrea Parkinson, was there. We’ve got Georgia Ball, who is a referee in the women’s game., who was also there. It felt like a really positive experience. The young girls were looked after and nurtured through their heart screening. It is not invasive, it’s a really gentle procedure.”
Outlining the importance of the screening, Jayne added: “It’s absolutely vital. There are some case studies of female footballers who have had sudden cardiac arrest or there has been serious condition that, had they been known about before, they absolutely could have been avoided.
“I know as a team we’ll continue to press the FA, the AFL and the Heart Foundation and continue our work with Westfield to really be pushing for that early detection. Finding these things earlier on absolutely can prevent what could be a very, very serious incident for a young woman or a girl.”