GUILLEM BALAGUE: Celebrating women's football... and things are finally looking up as hard work pays off

Women’s football has always been enormously important to us at Biggleswade United and by way as a homage to all the women who have contributed so much to the club both on and off the pitch we have printed a special one off programme to combine with International Women’s Day.

They will be free and copies will be available in the club house for future home games starting from this weekend.

Our ladies Blue side face Chipperfield Corinthians Women’s First on Sunday (KO 1pm) in the League Cup quarter finals of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Women’s Football League competition.

The growth in our women’s section at the club has been one of our proudest achievements in the past few years and our women’s Red side - who need just two points from their two remaining fixtures to finish runners up in Division One of the Eastern Region Women’s Football League - are also looking forward to their League Cup semi final clash which is against Wootton Blue Cross Lionesses on Sunday week.

With just eight games left to play the chances of our men’s first team staying in the Premier Division South of the United Counties after a long and tortuous first season are now very much in our own hands.

Despite conceding 76 goals in our first 14 league matches and 15 more in our two matches in the FA Cup and FA Vase, I believed all along that if we stayed strong, continued to believe and all put our shoulders to the wheel we could and would rebuild and survive.

We’re not out of the woods yet - far from it - although that chink of light we saw back in November when we gained our first points of the season against relegation rivals Northampton ON Chenecks has now blossomed into into a bright and shining beacon.

We are now enjoying a, previously unimaginable, run of four games without defeat starting with our County Cup victory over Arlesey Town and then followed up by two league wins and then a hard fought draw this week against sixth place Lutterworth Town which has seen us claw our way up into 18th place and out of the relegation area.

And now we now find ourselves just one match away from a place in the Bedfordshire Senior Cup final. Standing in our way are Bedford Town who we will meet at the Keech Hospice Care Stadium on Tuesday night (KO 7.45pm).

Our change of fortunes have not come about by accident.

Even during the darkest of times we never lost our battling spirit and desire despite taking some severe beatings along the way.

Now the vital work put in by coaches and players alike in training is beginning to reap dividends and we are now playing with our heads as well as with our hearts.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world for everyone to lose their heads, throw the towel in when we shipping goals on a regular basis, but we didn’t and much of the credit to that should to Cristian Colas and his team who remained loyal and focused and helped instil confidence into the side at a time when others might have walked away.

And it isn’t just with our men’s first team where the improvements have come.

Our men’s under 23s who have also had a tough season picked up a valuable point this weekend against Crawley Green Reserves and will look to maintain their form when they welcome Riseley Sports First on Wednesday night (KO 7.30pm).

Just how far our men’s first team has progressed will hopefully become a lot clearer when we travel to Coventry Sphinx tomorrow (Saturday, KO 3pm), not least because last time we met back in August last year we suffered the ignominy of having them hit 10 past us.

Hopefully this time around we will be able to give them much more of a contest.

Things are looking up!