Southampton Women's FC and Itchen College took another step forward this week to create a partnership for the long-term benefit of women's football in Southampton.

Itchen's women's football teams will now wear the same Kit and Bone designed football kits as the Southampton teams.

The Sirens launched the kit back in the summer ahead the 2023/24 campaign building on the club rebrand that started in November 2022.

It is a partnership championed by club Chairman Russ Kitching with sights set on bigger things between Itchen and the club as well as establishing links with other educational institutes from across the city of Southampton.

Several players from the under-18 and Reserves teams already study at Itchen while also playing for Southampton and it is hoped that more can come from the relationship to benefit the future players of women's football.

Statement from the Chairman

My name is Russ Kitching, Chairman of Southampton Women's Football Club and local entrepreneur, I got involved in the club due to its history and dynamics of growing the sport from the bottom up. The club already has a rich depth of talent in women's and girl's football from under-10s right the way to senior football competing at Tier Four against professional clubs.

The challenge was how do we compete fairly against a financial system. So we decided to create a pathway, an educational pathway, starting from u10s right the way through. First of all, Redbridge Community School, which is the home of the youth and training ground for the seniors, then following it into Itchen College and then into Southampton Solent University.

We needed a brand and we created a brand to unite us as an umbrella to bring everything together for women's football within the city of Southampton. The idea is to build bridges to make this happen, to feel that everyone who is a part of it becomes a stakeholder, similar to other cities like Barcelona and Bristol, where the people own the business and the club.

So the challenge was how do we set this up against financially driven clubs. Therefore we developed the Sirens as a brand to bring everyone together, starting with Redbridge and the headmasters of other schools, and now the principles that run the sport at Itchen College and the directors of Solent Univeristy to bring everyone together under one umbrella.

So through my pub, the Lapstone, which is pretty much the home at the moment of the Sirens, we reached out to Itchen College to start to bring that umbrella together, and I'm very proud to be involved in that development and to support Itchen through the launch of this new Sirens kit, which is really dynamic.

A lot of thought is being put in behind to set us up and in the sport. The energy from the bottom up, is driven by the players, the families, the support staff and the supporters. And the objective is to get this knowledge throughout the whole of the city and to build it through grassroots development. It's an infectious project that involves everybody and to become part of it and the Siren army.

I believe that other schools and educational institutions will become part of this with all the secondary schools and colleges feeding into Solent at the top of the pyramid. Another objective is to recruit players looking for an educational reward rather than a financial one. Through scholarships and support of education, this will be an attraction to be part of the Southampton team.

So it's all about building bridges and bringing people together and I do believe that once this starts it will just snowball. And the whole of the city of Southampton for women's and girl's performance football will come under the siren banner. I'd like to think that this time next year, our numbers will increase throughout our teams with people knocking on the door to build depth in the squads so that we can move forward.