LADIES LEAVE HETTON FOR SOUTH SHIELDS
SUNDERLAND RELOCATE AFTER SWITCH TO WINTER SEASON CAUSED CLUB PROBLEMS
Sunderland Ladies are leaving their Hetton home and moving to South Shields’ Mariners Park.
And the women’s squad will no longer be training at the Academy of Light, with training taking place at Northumbria University’s Coach Lane Campus, in Benton, just outside of Newcastle.
Sunderland say the changes have been made in response to the women’s game reverting from a summer to a winter season, causing ‘scheduling conflicts’ with other club teams.
The Ladies’ season starts a week on Sunday with a Women’s Super League 1 clash away to Reading, with the first game at their new home being against Spring Series champions Chelsea on Saturday, September 30 (6pm).
A club statement read: “The moving of the WSL to a winter league has highlighted some scheduling conflicts with other fixtures at the Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground, and Mariners Park has provided a great solution for the club.
“Centrally located for easy supporter access, the ground can accommodate up to 3,500 spectators.
“Sunderland Ladies will also be linking up with Northumbria University for the new season, who operate one of eight designated FA Women’s High Performance Football Centres.
“The university’s Coach Lane campus is a hub for the development of the women’s game in the North East and Sunderland Ladies will base their training programme within the state-of-the-art centre, which offers bespoke facilities and services specifically designed for the women’s game.”
Sunderland Ladies general manager Sonia Kulkarni, said: “Mariners Park is a great venue, and we are very much looking forward to our new season at South Shields.
“Our fans have given us such tremendous support over the last few seasons and the move to Mariners Park will open up a whole new audience to women’s football, which is a huge positive for us.
“We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground. We had some memorable matches there, and would like to thank everyone at the Hetton Centre for their support.”
David Mitchell, commercial director at South Shields, said: “We are delighted to welcome the Sunderland Ladies team to Mariners Park.
“It is a great honour for South Shields Football Club to be able to host their matches here, hopefully for a long time to come.
“We have invested heavily in our playing surface and our facilities over the summer and it shows how far we have come when a team of this level wants to use our venue.”
The move to Mariners Park, which is in Jarrow, has disappointed a lot of the team’s fans who live close to the Hetton ground, which has been the Lady Black Cats’ home for almost 10 years.
Sunderland play nine home league games a season, but there will also be cup games to include in the schedule.