Sunderland Ladies given new hope in bid to return from football’s margins

Proposed takeover of Black Cats and the support this could bring Melanie Reay’s side means mood on Wearside is buoyant

On a sweltering July night in the middle of a French heatwave six graduates of Sunderland Ladies started England’s narrow Women’s World Cup semi-final defeat to the United States. The sight of Steph Houghton, Lucy Bronze, Jill Scott et al assuming centre-stage represented a bitter-sweet sight for many on Wearside where the club that has played such an integral part in the recently burgeoning growth of the women’s game seemed to have all but fallen off the edge of the footballing world.

It is not so long ago that the talent factory which provided the nucleus of the Lionesses’s teams that reached the semi finals of the last three major international tournaments was effectively divorced by its parent men’s club. No longer able to finance a fully professional squad, Sunderland were demoted two divisions from the Women’s Super League by the Football Association and shunted to the game’s margins.

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from Football | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/25/sunderland-ladies-football

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