“THEY WON THEIR INAUGURAL GAME, AND
FROM THERE THE CLUB REACHED DIZZYING
HEIGHTS DURING THEIR MAIDEN CAMPAIGN”
ImagesWiki ImagesmanCHESTER
UNITED WOMENRight Casey
Stoney, the first
Manchester
United
Women’s head
coach in history,
watches her
side train
Below
Diane Caldwell
celebrates
United’s fourth
goal against
Leicester City,
5 March 2022
Bottom
United’s record
goalscorer Ella
Toone races
away from a
Man City player,
9 October 2021to establish a team in the WSL2, a tier below their close rivals
Manchester City in the new FA Women’s Championship.
“After Real Madrid’s application this year to create a women’s
team, United remained the only ‘superclub’ without one but are now
catching up with pretty much every other English club in having
a team that they plan to play at the club’s training centre at The Cliff,”
reported Yahoo Sports at the time.
United’s Executive Vice-Chairman Ed Woodward commented, “The
Manchester United women’s team must be built in the same image
and with the same principles as the men’s first team and offer
academy players a clear route to top-level football within the club.”
The Manchester United W.F.C. scored an electrifying coup with
the hiring of Casey Stoney, a headlining defender with the England
women’s national football team, as well as Arsenal, Charlton Athletic,
Chelsea, Lincoln and Liverpool during her senior career. Stoney was
announced as the club’s first head coach on 8 June 2018, and the
team charged the field in August, winning their inaugural game 1-0
over Liverpool in the FA Women’s League Cup, with veteran forward
Lizzie Arnot scoring the team’s first competitive goal in 13 years.
From there the club reached dizzying heights of success during
their maiden campaign. Three weeks after that first victory, a 12-0
drubbing of Aston Villa served notice that United were a force in the
championship. Promotion to the FA Super League came on 17 April
2019 after another victory over the claret and blue, this time 5-0. A
7-0 home win over Crystal Palace three days later sealed the FA
Women’s Championship crown. In May, Manchester United were
named FA Women’s Championship Club of the Year.
The 2019–20 season was the first for United in the FA Women’s
Super League, and, on 7 September 2019, a 1-0 Manchester derby
loss at rival Manchester City drew an English domestic attendance
record of 31,213. The following spring, the FA suspended the season
temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and then ended it fully
on 25 May 2020. Fourteen matches were played, and the team were
placed fourth in the WSL based on points per game.
As the 2020–21 season progressed, there were rumblings of
discontent within Manchester United, despite the cheering news that
the team had marked their Old Trafford debut with a 2-0 victory over
West Ham and success on the Super League field had been steady.
Still, FA League Cup performances had been frustrating with a tie
against Manchester City sandwiched between disheartening losses to
Liverpool and Everton the previous autumn.
In May 2021, Stoney announced her resignation as head coach
amid speculation that she was frustrated by lagging support from
management, particularly in the allocation of resources to training
facility improvement. The season ended with a second straight
fourth-place finish, and blistering perspectives emerged in the
news media.
One concerned reporter wrote, “Manchester United were expected
to become one of the dominant forces in the women’s game. But fast
forward a couple of years, and the club has no manager, is losing
key players rapidly, and is reportedly failing to provide high-quality
facilities for its players.”
Although the timeframe was lengthy – in fact more than two
months – United ownership announced on 29 July 2021 that 38-year-
old Marc Skinner, the experienced former manager of Birmingham
City W.F.C and of the Orlando Pride of the National Women’s Soccer
League in the United States, would step into the sizable breach as
head coach, signing a two-year contract with an option for a
follow-on third.
The current campaign offers reasons for optimism, with United
having defeated Arsenal 1-0 in January to reach the semi-finals of
the League Cup. The win was the fifth straight match across each
competition in which the team did not surrender a goal, and the
subsequent draw placed them head to head with Chelsea, while
Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur made the other bracket.
“You can probably see from my face how it feels,” Skinner told
a television reporter after the tight quarter-final victory.
Defeat in the semi-final to Chelsea (who would lose the final 3-1 to
Man City) proved the club still have some way to go, but provided the
team is backed sufficiently, brighter days lay ahead for United’s
talented women.
FourFourTwo.com The Story of Man Utd 119