Karleigh Osborne spoke highly of his team following their 2022/23 season with the head coach labelling his side ‘incredible’.
Brentford Women just missed out on the London South East Regional Women’s Football League Division One North title and reached a Capital Cup final in a season where the side showed progression on and off the field.
Osborne was left proud of everything his side had achieved over the course of the season as he spoke at Brentford Women’s internal awards evening. The head coach talked on the importance of acknowledging the players achievements after a gruelling campaign where his team played 31 times.
“Bringing the team together to recognise their accomplishments at the end of the season is super important, we’ve had two teams who have finished second in their leagues and also reached two finals which is an unbelievable achievement so it’s great to celebrate that with the players,” said the head coach.
“There are obviously individual players who have shined, people like Chloe Logie who scored 36 goals, she deserves to be praised and these nights are perfect for that.”
Karleigh Osborne speaking at women's awards night
The women’s first team finished their league campaign in second place just four points adrift of title winners Dorking Wanderers who finished on 45 points and clinched promotion to the Premier Division.
The Bees only lost three times at home all season with two of these defeats coming at the hands of Dorking who beat the side in the final of the Capital Cup in April.
Talking on his team’s goals at the beginning of the season, Osborne said: “For the first team the most important target was to try and gain promotion and we took it to the last day. I’m super proud of the effort we put in and what we produced, it was difficult on the last day of the season when we realised we hadn’t done it and it obviously didn’t help that we lost our game.
“When you look back on what the team has achieved this year and all they have done, they’ve been incredible, and they deserve a lot of credit.
“When you look back on what the team has achieved this year and all they have done, they’ve been incredible, and they deserve a lot of credit."
“We had a lot of ups and downs during the season but I had belief in this group, when you look back on a few of our fixtures you think to yourself we needed to be more ruthless but that’s learning for us. We have a young group who are being pushed and constantly being taken out of their comfort zone, we want to be an elite club and it’s our job to give them the right environment to try and do that.”
One of Brentford Women’s most notable achievements from the season was when 5,116 fans watched Osborne’s side beat Watford Ladies Development 4-2 as they performed at the Gtech Community Stadium for the first time on November 13..
The club set the record for the highest attendance at a women’s tier six football match, the second time they achieved a similar fate came in April when they broke the attendance record at their home ground, Bedfont Sports Club with 1,124 supporters watching on as the Bees beat Richmond Park 4-1.
The first team have also made positive moves off the pitch bringing in a variety of new staff members as they look to create an environment where the players can thrive in.
Osborne addressing his side after their win at the Gtech Community Stadium
“To get 5,000 is incredible, there are pro clubs that don’t get that number of fans at their games, you look at the work we have done in terms of bringing Beata (Ostrowska) in for the Strength and Conditioning side of stuff along with being able to do sessions at the Robert Rowan Performance Centre, it’s all been a massive help.
“The staff that we have are brilliant and want to constantly develop the players, we have people like Ollie (Cottis, Sports Psychologist) who doesn’t always get seen or mentioned but he’s fantastic for the girls and really works with them on the mental side of things and tries to help them understand where we are as a club and how we’re moving forward but most importantly helping them become better mentally.
“We’re in a fantastic place, we have a really good environment here and we just want to keep improving it as much as we can.”