PLAYERS from across the county enjoyed Worcestershire FA’s annual girls' football festivals.

Based at Evesham United and Stourport Swifts, the two-day event allowed primary school girls to experience football in a different way.

They involved non-competitive matches and a number of different activities including a target shoot, face painting, kit designing, skills sessions and more.

The festivals aimed to help girls who had little to no current experience in football to engage in the sport and hopefully inspire them to start playing regularly.

With over 40 teams from nearly 30 different schools attending, the county FA hope many of the players will join their local team or SSE Wildcats Centre.

The 16 county centres provide girls aged five to 11 with opportunities to play football on a weekly basis either after school or at weekends.

Stourbridge-born Kerys Harrop, the Birmingham City Ladies captain, attended the festivals where the girls had the opportunity to ask questions about her footballing career throughout the day.

She said: "I’m really lucky to be able to call my hobby my job. When I was younger it was difficult to find a local girls' team.

"Birmingham was probably the closest and I’ve been there ever since.

"There were no programmes especially on a school level where you could play with purely girls' teams.

"In primary school I was the only girl playing so I had to play with the boys.

"It’s fantastic to see this many girls at the festivals. It’s really promising.”

Laura McGinn, Worcestershire FA’s football development officer and organiser of the festivals, said: “It was great to see so many girls getting involved and having fun playing football.

"A lot of the girls hadn’t played football before so hopefully this has shown them that football isn’t just for the boys and has inspired them to keep playing and join their local SSE Wildcats Centre or local club.”

For more information on local centres, visit worcestershirefa.com.