At the age of just 10 Peaches Davies has set up a fundraising challenge; motivated her school to set up a lunchtime girls football club and launched a series of football training videos – I am in awe!

Peaches loves football and has been playing for as long as she can remember. She plays for her beloved Portsmouth FC and her favourite players are Lionel Messi and Nikita Parris.

Before schools were closed Peaches used to play every day with the boys at break and lunch.  In an effort to encourage more girls to play, she approached her headteacher asking if she could set up a lunchtime football club for girls.

After a year of discussion and planning the details of where to play, who to supervise and what time it could take place, the lunchtime football club was formed and girls were given the opportunity every Monday for 25 minutes.

Peaches’ 1-1 coach Laura Grubb and professional footballer Shannon Sievewright from Southampton FC attended school assembly to talk about football in a session that was enjoyed by all.  On the first day of football club 25 girls attended – a resounding success.

From there many of them have gone on to join clubs and some have started joining in at the local wildcats centre.

Peaches would like to see all schools offer football clubs for both boys and girls, I think this would be a great idea, so often football clubs don’t have enough girls to form their own team and a school club would at least give girls the opportunity to see if it is a sport they enjoy and a fun way to get some exercise.

Impressively, during lockdown Peaches has made a series of training videos where she demonstrates a skill and then gives a step by step instruction on how to achieve it, her motto is Practice, Practice, Practice!

You can find all Peaches training videos on her twitter feed @PeachesDavies. You can see a little of her skills and determination in the video above.

Lockdown has given Peaches the bonus of being able to train every day making the most of a difficult situation and probably testing her mum’s coaching skills.

And, when she’s not playing football Peaches likes to box at the Portsmouth Boxing Academy, giving her focus and keeping mind and body sharp – is she really only 10?

Peaches has also set up a fundraising challenge she is helping to raise money and awareness for the Darby Rimmer MND foundation.

Definitely a name for the future – it will be so interesting watching her progress.

You can read our other articles about children training in lockdown here and here.