The Royal Parks’ new hybrid pitch opens the door for women and girls in sports

Amongst the first users of the pitch will be 200 girls aged 9 to 13 playing in a new Saturday summer football league organised by Arsenal FC.*

The Regent’s Park is home to central London’s largest outdoor sports facility**, The Hub, which has grass pitches available to book for a variety of sports including football, rugby, lacrosse and cricket.

The Royal Parks is continually looking for new ways to provide sport and wellbeing opportunities for people in London through The Hub, and the new hybrid pitch will enable the number of girls’ football teams playing in The Regent’s Park Youth League to treble from 32 to 110 teams by 2026.

This follows an escalation in the national popularity of girls’ football since the Lionesses won Euro 2022. Latest figures from 2023 show that 845,000 girls play football in England – this is an increase of 176,000 since the 2017 to 2018 academic year.***

The new facilities will also help create more opportunities for people with disabilities and long-term health conditions to play football, through the London Inclusive Sports Academy and North London Inclusive League.

The hybrid pitch, with matting buried under the natural turf, will allow grass to grow through. This will help maintain the condition of the surface throughout the year and will tolerate more than double the number of hours usage on the pitch each week than on a traditional grass pitch.

Once fully grown, the visible blades of grass will be 90 percent natural, and ten percent artificial.

The pitch will primarily be used for football in the winter season, and softball in the summer season. However, it will also be available for other sports, including Rugby Union and Rugby League.

David Ellis, Sports Manager at The Royal Parks, said: 

“Research shows that girls who play football report higher levels of self-confidence than those who play other sports.****

“The Royal Parks is committed to encouraging people from all backgrounds to become more active, and to providing space for more women and girls’ teams to use our facilities.

“We’d like to thank the Football Foundation for the grant to help us provide these facilities to inspire more women and girls to get involved in sports.”

Chelsea Women’s Manager, Emma Hayes, who recently attended a memorial event in The Regent’s Park for her father Sid Hayes and helped set up the Regent’s Park Youth League, said: 

“This is a fantastic opportunity to grow the girls’ game in central London.”

The new hybrid pitch has been made possible thanks to a grant of £380,000 from the Premier League, The FA and Government’s Football Foundation, with support from Westminster Council, together with funding from The Royal Parks charity.

Robert Sullivan, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: 

“The Football Foundation is working closely with our partners – the Premier League, The FA and Government – to transform the quality of grassroots facilities in England by delivering projects like this across the country. 

“Good quality playing facilities have a transformative impact on physical and mental health and play an important role in bringing people together and strengthening local communities. 

“We’re delighted that the local community in North West London will now be able to enjoy all these benefits thanks to the new facilities in The Regent’s Park.”