At the end of a week when so much attention has focused on where it all went wrong for Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool in the Champions League, it is worth remembering there is still one English team flying the flag. Bristol Academy, conquerors of Barcelona in the previous round, host Frankfurt at Ashton Gate on Saturday in the first leg of their Women’s Champions League quarter-final.
“It’s surprising how many people don’t know that we’re playing in the quarter-final of the Champions League, yet you flip it to the men’s game and everyone knows that Arsenal went out on away goals on Tuesday night,” Grace McCatty, Bristol’s captain, says with a smile. “It is nice for us to get some recognition, not just in and around Bristol but nationally, because I do think we deserve it.”
As the only Women’s Super League 1 team not affiliated to a professional men’s club, it is quite an achievement for Bristol to reach the last eight. Nobody gave Dave Edmondson’s side much of a chance when they drew Barcelona in the last 16, yet Bristol ended their 55-match unbeaten home record and triumphed 2-1 on aggregate after a 1-1 draw in front of 2,500 at Ashton Gate in the second leg in November. “Bristol beat Barcelona, you don’t hear that much in football,” McCatty says, laughing.
Frankfurt, however, represent a step up in class again. Edmondson talks about a team “stacked with absolute superstars”, highlights the fact that they have won the Champions League three times and says that if Bristol go through it will go down as one of the biggest upsets in the history of women’s football. “The only way I can explain it is, their manager has just signed a new contract and if they don’t beat us, I would be amazed if he’s still there,” Edmondson says. “If we win, it would be like Yeovil beating Manchester United [in the men’s game].”
Not that Bristol’s manager is resigned to defeat. “We’ve got a gameplan, a style of play that can beat Frankfurt. It will need everyone having their best game, which was the case in the last half-hour of the home tie against Barcelona. We’ll need that from everyone for 90 minutes against Frankfurt.”
Yet so much has changed in the four months since that Barcelona tie, which is the last competitive match Bristol played because the domestic season in England runs from the end of March until October. Five of the Bristol side that featured against Barcelona have moved on, including last season’s leading scorer, Natalia Pablos-Sanchón, who has joined Arsenal along with Jemma Rose. Natasha Harding, another of Bristol’s most talented players last year, has signed for Manchester City.
“We’ve lost five or six players and that’s down to finance, pure and simple,” Edmondson says. “My entire playing budget for the year is £100,000. Manchester City are giving one player £70,000. And it’s not one player that is getting £70,000 and everyone else is on peanuts.”
While Bristol may not be able to compete financially with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and City – whom Edmondson also makes a point of praising for “promoting women’s football really well” – the club have other strings to their bow. A partnership with South Gloucestershire and Stroud college allows the players to make use of the excellent sport facilities on a £30m campus. There is also a centre of excellence and a female football development programme that enables those aged 16-19 to combine studies with playing.
McCatty came through that system. “I think one thing that Bristol deserve so much credit for is that they place a huge value on developing younger players, and that probably to an extent comes down to the budget,” she says. “You look at the current team, there is myself, Jasmine Matthews, Nikki Watts and Sharla [Passariello] who are all products of our 16-19 academy. Any young player who wants to play at the highest level, I would 100% recommend coming to Bristol because there is a pathway.”
Whether further opportunities open up through being part of the Bristol Sport stable, which is owned by the billionaire Steve Lansdown and includes Bristol Rugby and Bristol City, remains to be seen. At the moment Bristol Academy rely heavily on a couple of sponsors for financial support as well as funding from the Football Association.
Many of Edmondson’s players work full-time which means that three of Bristol’s four training sessions in the week have to take place from 7.30pm-9.30pm. With all the travelling it is a big commitment for relatively little financial reward. Yet as Mary Earps, Bristol’s goalkeeper and a Loughborough University student, points out, getting the chance to play in a Champions League quarter-final makes all the sacrifices worthwhile, even if the task ahead is a daunting one. “Everyone says to me on Twitter or Facebook or in text messages: ‘Just keep a clean sheet, Mary, and you’ll be fine.’ Not a problem. They’ve only got almost the entire German national team, including [Celia] Sasic, the girl who scored two past England when they beat them 3-0 in November,” she says.
“All jokes aside, we know that they’re a good team but we also know what it felt like to beat Barcelona. And we’re going to chase that feeling again.”
