{"id":585747,"date":"2021-03-05T12:35:34","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T17:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=585747"},"modified":"2021-03-05T12:36:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T17:36:40","slug":"clint-lancaster-hurt-by-grassroots-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/05\/clint-lancaster-hurt-by-grassroots-label\/","title":{"rendered":"Watford Women’s Coach Clint Lancaster \u2018Hurt\u2019 By \u2018Grassroots\u2019 Label"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clint Lancaster, Watford<\/a> women\u2019s team head coach, admits that being labelled as a grassroots team in a non-elite league is a tough pill to swallow.<\/p>\n

Clint Lancaster Not Happy With Grassroots Tag<\/h2>\n

Clint Lancaster Hasn’t Managed Since Watford’s Last Game on December 13<\/h3>\n

The Hornets ply their trade in the Women\u2019s National League South \u2013 the third tier of the game – with only the Women\u2019s Super League<\/a> and Women\u2019s Championship classed as \u2018elite\u2019 in this country.<\/p>\n

Lancaster\u2019s side have not played a game since before the current English lockdown on December 13 but says that the infrastructure and support in place for his players is not befitting of grassroots status.<\/p>\n

In a virtual press conference organised by Next Gen Sports Solutions<\/a> earlier this week, he said: \u201cThat\u2019s a very hard thing for us to take as both players and coaches. We\u2019ve got Helen Ward<\/a> playing for us who is the record goalscorer for Wales and is still playing internationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have a number of other players that have featured internationally too. There is also brilliant support from the men\u2019s side of the club, as we can use all the same facilities. So that\u2019s why it hurts when you\u2019re classed as \u2018grassroots\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a great relationship there and I would say we\u2019re in a fortunate position in the sense that our set-up means we\u2019re probably a Championship club competing in the National League.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watford Could Have Carried on Playing<\/h3>\n

Lancaster admits that Watford could have implemented the necessary safety procedures to continue playing during lockdown, but others playing at the same level may have struggled to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could\u2019ve [carried on playing], but in the National League there\u2019s quite a big divide and a number of teams wouldn\u2019t have been able to continue playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is frustrating to see the Championship continue but it is what it is and we have just had to accept that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s also frustrating is that it gives Championship clubs the chance to look at my players and it can be quite difficult to keep hold of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know what The FA can do to fix this divide. Do they grow the Championship or change how they run the National League and turn that semi-pro? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I do know is that there a lot of players and coaches in the National League that don\u2019t appreciate being labelled in the grassroots category.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lancaster Welcomes a Playoff System<\/h3>\n

Watford currently sit top of the Women\u2019s National League South, but promotion would not be guaranteed even if they finish first. They would need to beat the winners of the northern division to secure a place in the Championship.<\/p>\n

Lancaster welcomes the idea of implementing a play-off system to give more teams a chance to win promotion but stressed that clubs fulfilling strict licensing criteria will come into play.<\/p>\n

\u201cA playoff system would definitely be interesting and quite exciting too, but what you have to bear in mind is that promoted clubs have to meet new requirements to play in a higher division.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you could have a team that wins our league, they don\u2019t meet the requirements and then the opportunity for promotion is presented to the team that finishes second.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really need to have an idea of which teams could meet the off-field requirements of playing in the Championship before the season starts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do think that a playoff system would be exciting for the women\u2019s game and something that I\u2019d definitely support.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clint Lancaster, Watford women\u2019s team head coach, admits that being labelled as a grassroots team in a non-elite league is a tough pill to swallow. Clint Lancaster Not Happy With Grassroots Tag Clint Lancaster Hasn’t Managed Since Watford’s Last Game on December 13 The Hornets ply their trade in the Women\u2019s National League South \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3766,"featured_media":585777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7007,25,7009,7008],"tags":[8402,8400],"class_list":["post-585747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-womens-football","category-watford","category-womens-championship","category-womens-super-league","tag-clint-lancaster","tag-next-gen-sports-solutions"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}