Nottingham Forest Women’s team turning professional is “really exciting” for the area, Notts County captain Holly Fowler has said.
The FA Women’s National League North side will start with 18 full-time players next season before going fully professional for the 2025-26 campaign
The club said it hopes the move will “accelerate the growth of the women’s game”.
“It shows how people are investing and getting behind women’s football, for a tier-three team to go to that level,” Fowler told BBC Radio Nottingham.
Fowler, who struggled to find a local team when she started playing as a child, said it showed the women’s game was on the up.
“It’s definitely good for the area because it encourages young girls to pursue the sport and keep playing,” she said.
“They can see it’s an achievable level, where they can make it a full-time career. For the younger players in my team, it gives them more of a goal to keep playing, pushing and keep at it. It gives you that belief.”
Fowler was also happy to see Nottingham Forest Netball join Birmingham Panthers as new members of the relaunched Netball Super League, which is being reduced to eight teams as part of plans to go professional from 2025.
“It’s not just football – it’s young girls in sport in general,” said Fowler. “It gives them an outlet.
“Whatever sport they’re competing in, to have all these teams at or near the top level is just brilliant.”
Forest have played in England’s third tier since 2012, while County stayed up by a point in the fourth tier in 2023-24, having secured promotion the previous season by beating Mansfield in front of more than 1,000 people at Meadow Lane.
The Nottingham clubs will meet in the FA WNL Cup on 29 August after being drawn against each other in the competition Forest won in 2022-23.
“It’s a local derby, which adds a little bit more,” said lifelong County fan Fowler. “Hopefully it’ll bring more fans down for both sides.
“It’s always interesting to play a team like Forest, especially because of how good they are. It’ll be a really good test for us to see how our season might play out.”
The centre-back hopes the Magpies, who were founded in 2018 and play home matches at Hucknall Town’s RM Stadium, will be “a lot stronger” in 2024-25.
“We wanted to cement ourselves in this league,” said Fowler. “It was tough. We’ve built on that in pre-season and added new players.
“We’re ready to give it another go and, hopefully, compete. If we can be up and around the top half of the league, give teams good games, show our style of football and put a good platform out, it benefits us.
“Then we attract players who want to come and play for us. It all keeps building the momentum.”