On Monday, the FA announced the 2020/21 Women’s National League seasons would be curtailed with immediate effect as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite being top of the WNL Northern Division, Huddersfield Town have now been denied a league title. GiveMeSport Women talk to those affected.For the second season in a row, goalkeeper Bethan Davies has been denied the chance to win a league title. Last year, she was top of the FA WNL Division One North with Barnsley, but the season was then curtailed due to the pandemic. This season, Davies was part of a Huddersfield Town side that was leading the WNL Northern Division.It must have felt like déjà vu when the FA announced it would null and void the WNL seasons once again. Davies revealed it seemed like “a wasted couple of years.”“To say I’m disappointed and frustrated about the FA decision is an understatement, but I’m not surprised,” she said. “After making a snap decision last year and allowing teams to vote on the outcome this season it was obvious what would happen - most teams who don’t have a chance of promotion would vote against, especially those who might be relegated.“It’s sad we can’t finish the season and so we have possibly missed out on becoming league champions. Last year I was at Barnsley when the same happened, we were number one in the league and favourites to win before the season was null and void.”(Huddersfield Town Women/Jess Hornby)Huddersfield Town manager Jordan Wimpenny had also been expecting the decision to null and void the season.“I thought it would get null and void again, there’s always that hope that it doesn’t and you can continue, but I told the players to prepare for the worst decision,” he explained. “Then if anything was to change around that then they could sort of deal with that emotionally.”Wimpenny must now handle an array of emotion among his team and staff. He revealed the majority of players were “disappointed and frustrated”, having missed out on time on the pitch and potentially winning the league.“Emotions are high and the players are frustrated,” he said. “Some of them are confused because they don’t understand the decision, and some of them have responded off raw emotion, so it’s something we have to acknowledge and deal with at the moment.”

Mixed emotions around FA Cup

It’s not quite the end of the 2020/21 season for Huddersfield Town, however. The team will still be able to play in the FA Cup, with the first round scheduled for the end of March. The decision to continue with the knock-out tournament has been met with a mixed reaction. While it is a chance to get back out on the pitch, some players feel they are only there to allow the Women’s Super League and Championship teams to compete.

“The FA Cup is being continued so that the top two leagues will be able to enter, knock out teams from below and ultimately win the trophy,” Davies said. “It’s positive as we still get to play some competitive games, but once the Championship and WSL teams enter it will become all about them. Lower level clubs have very little real chance at that trophy.”

“I’m excited to play though, and have hope for a strong cup run. It would be good to draw a WSL team.”

(Huddersfield Town Women)

Wimpenny agreed on the conflicting emotions surrounding the FA Cup.

“When you are looking at the FA Cup continuing, it’s good for us to still be able to play games and try and continue in a competition, but it’s also frustrating for the players because it’s almost like they’re propping up a contest without continuing the league, which is what they want to be doing,” he said.

“The FA Cup, for us, could last until the next game, it could last three of four games down the line. For some teams, it could be their last game. When you’re looking at the league, we had probably half the league to play. Even just to get a couple of games a week and have training, and just try to get things up and running, for us would have been a better option.”

Promotion goals

Technically, victory in the WNL Northern Division meant a chance of promotion to the Championship for Huddersfield Town. The winners of the Southern and Northern leagues compete in a play-off to determine the overall WNL champions, who then earn a place in the second tier of women’s football, subject to meeting licence criteria.

Huddersfield Town decided in January they would not apply for promotion, however, citing financial reasons and the difficulty of the pandemic. In the end, the club were denied the chance to achieve promotion anyway.

Wimpenny confirmed promotion to the Championship was now the ultimate aim for next season, but voiced concerns about the impact the decision to null and void the season could have on the players.

“We’ve got to now keep the players motivated and allow them to be prepared to go and try that success again, because we do want to achieve promotion, we are an ambitious club and an ambitious group of people,” he revealed.

“On paper, we’ve probably got one of the strongest teams, and that’s shown this season. If I’m honest, over the past few seasons, they’ve probably underachieved as a group, but this season they’ve really put themselves in the position where they should be.”

“The frustrating thing for them is that they’re going to have to wait another 12 months. It’s the same for staff as well. But we’ve had a bit of time together now where we’ve worked through every lockdown that we’ve had, overcome every challenge we’ve had, and we just have to stick together and do it again.”