World Footy News

Helsingborg Saints are well on their way to starting Sweden’s first women’s team.

With six enthusiastic female members and more joining up each week, Saints player Jacob Lantz feels it won’t be long before Sweden has a female Euro Cup team, and there might even be a Swedish or Scandinavian appearance at the Women’s IC14.

It all started when Lantz was discussing ways to introduce the sport to more people in Helsingborg and draw larger crowds for home games with club founder Ingmar Lundquist and coach Leighton Rowsell. The decided to try starting an 8-a-side touch footy competition and encouraged their friends to come and have a go.

Unfortunately, the first game was cancelled due to bad weather but the week after, 8 people showed up: 3 women and 5 men. The training grew in popularity until they had enough players to field two teams.

One of them was female rugby player, Mikaela Ohlsson, who was taking a break after injuring her ankle. She enjoyed touch footy but wanted to play the “real” game with the guys, so Lantz spoke to her about starting a female team in Helsingborg and trying to get a Swedish women’s team to compete at the Euro Cup. Ohlsson was keen and decided to hold a women’s training event on the 30th of July. She brought along some of her friends and in total there were 6 women who came along.

The training session was held on the oval alongside the Helsingborg Saints senior team and after a crash course in Aussie Rules, the girls got to try their new skills out in a mixed game with the guys. Lantz was impressed by their skills, especially the tackles and marks, and one of the newcomers, Kerstin Lövendahl, kicked a goal from 30m out. Everyone enjoyed themselves and the girls are all looking forward to next week, when Lantz says three more girls are joining.

Lantz wants Australian Football to grow as much as possible in Sweden and he hopes that the addition of a women’s team will help it happen. To further encourage the female game, he wants to talk with nearby rivals Malmö with the idea being them starting a women's team too to give the Lady Saints some competition.

Any ladies interested in joining the Saints or playing women’s football elsewhere in Sweden can join the Lady Saints’ Facebook group here.