Sessions with the female members of Hexham-based Gateway into the Community, which supports adults with learning disabilities across West Northumberland, have grown so much in popularity that they have been able to form a team.

However, they have been unable to find opposition within Northumberland or Newcastle, and are considering weekly trips to Sunderland to ensure competitive football.

Their frustrations, though, are just an indication of how far the set of ladies have come since starting sessions at Hexham’s Wentworth Leisure Centre, their increased strength emulating the progress made by the men’s Gateway Gladiators squad.

The Gladiators started out playing recreational football under the expert guidance of coaches from Newcastle United Foundation, but grew to the point where they were ready to play in the Newcastle Development League, recently renamed the Pin Point Recruitment Disability League.

Their success is providing the women with inspiration to keep looking out for opportunities to play, and keep developing.

Gateway’s life chances manager, Julia Ferguson, said: “We are quite unique with the amount of women playing football as there’s no teams in Newcastle or Northumberland, yet we hail from a small area in West Northumberland.

“There might be a chance to get to Sunderland which would be fantastic as they are so keen. The health benefits are great, but there’s also the social element and they are flying because of the football.

“The women look at the men who are doing really well in the league as a bit of an example, and it shows that if you have a dream or an aspiration then you can go for it.”

The football programme is an enhancement on the sporting programme Gateway into the Community runs, with strong links forged with Northumberland FA and Northumberland Cricket Board.

The men and women who use the service have also tried their hands locally at racquetball, squash, bowls, tennis, badminton and cycling.

Julia said: “I didn’t realise they liked sport until they tried it out, and it’s amazing to see their confidence grow when playing football or any other sport.”

The project received a huge boost recently when it was announced NUFC Foundation had received funding from the FA’s Disabled Football Development Fund to keep running its projects for three more years. And coaches within the foundation are keen to build on the huge success of the scheme in Hexham.

Reggie Dornan, the foundation’s disabled football project coordinator, said: “When young people get to 16, that’s it; it’s finished. There’s no adult sport so this helped get adults with disabilities playing football, and we run 14 of these projects in the region.

“Working with Julia here highlights what the foundation is about, working with people in the community.

“It really pleases us to see the amount of women that have developed in the sport in Hexham, and we are happy to see they have formed a women’s team.

“The three coaches love coming to Hexham and the relationship between the coach and player is brilliant, and we always get great numbers of 30 plus on a weekly basis here.”