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JESS ROBINSON

 

“Cottingham Rangers to England”

 

My football experience began at Cottingham Rangers mini soccer 15 years ago and I would never have predicted at that time I’d achieve what I have, especially as I used to spend most of the session running around avoiding the ball.

I started playing for Cottingham Rangers u7s boys’ team being the only girl in both my team and the league, which often lead to many comments from the opposition about how they’d easily win because of that – they soon realised that that wouldn’t be the case!

When I was 8 I trialled for Hull College Girls Centre of Excellence and ended up being the only u9s player in the u10 team. I represented Hull for the next 7 years and moved to Lincoln Ladies Centre. It was at Lincoln where I received an offer to attend a trial at the Elite Performance Camp at St Georges Park.

I was successful and soon received a call up for an England u15s training camp comprising of 28 hopeful players I was one of the successful 20 players from this squad and went out to Holland where I played 135 minutes at right-back.

I then stayed in the England u15s squad for the remainder of the season. These successes then lead to an u17s training camp invite and I stayed part of this set-up for the following 12 months, gaining an u17 cap in the meantime.

The same year when I first played for England was the year my coaching ambitions grew. It started when a programme, run by my school, gave me the opportunity to return to Cottingham Rangers and help out with the coaching.

Being only 14 and having limited experience I tried to pass on my enthusiasm, knowledge and love for the game as best as I could.

My coaching really developed a few years later whilst at Bristol University, coaching the University first team and the development squad respectively.

Through these experiences both playing and coaching, I have realised that the most important aspect of being a coach is making the training sessions as fun as possible as this creates the best environment for players to learn and grow.

Jess Robinson

I recently have volunteered with my first club “Cottingham Rangers” helping out the Coaches for our Girls U10 team, over the next few months I hope to bring my experience and enthusiasm to the young team.