As spotted by someone on the Loft For Words forums, we seemed to have some new gizmos around the stadium on South Africa Road.

I happened to be by there earlier and took a snap of what it looks like…

Earlier today the QPR Ladies team started their pre-season campaign with a victory away to Brentwood in Essex and I went along to watch.

The team was a mixture of first-team and reserve players and they put in a gutsy performance in what was a very good workout for the side.

We were a little rough around the edges at times which was always going to be the case with it being the first game and some of the players still learning one another’s names. But of the two sides, we definitely played the better and more attractive football and some of our link up and approach play was really good to watch.

In the first-half we didn’t create a great deal of opportunities on goal but we kept nice and patient and bided our time. In the second-half we really opened Brentwood up and could and should have scored a lot more than the four goals we got.

We went 1-0 down in the first-half but managed to pull it back to 1-1 thanks to a Carla Williams penalty. In the second period, Tanya put us 2-1 up and then Allana Ashmeil made it 3-1 before two quick goals from Brentwood in the last 10 minutes pulled it back to 3-3.

It looked like they had snatched a draw but we showed great resilience and character to churn out more opportunities right at the depth and Allana duly took one of them to make the score 4-3 and secure the win.

Team: Fiona Webb (GK), Jayd Bowley, Simone Dwyer (Capt), Mel Randall, Camilla Ray, Tanya, Suze Wylie, Carla Williams, Donya Wilson and Allana Ashmeil.

I took some photos of the performance which can be found below.

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I attended a couple of the Ladies training sessions this week, which included Tuesday and Thursday. The coaching stuff are working the players hard as they look go improve their fitness ahead of the coming season and this Sunday they have the first of their pre-season friendly matches.

I’m currently using these sessions as an exercise to beef up my knowledge and understanding of coaching and the various drills ahead of when I decide to start my Level 2 Certificate in Football Coaching.

I grabbed some photos of Thursday’s session which can be found below.

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The QPR Ladies team are looking to add a Reserves side for the coming season and I attended the trials today to take a look at some of the players on show, which included trialists and some first-team players.

It’s hoped that the majority of the players will join and make up the bulk of the Reserves side and help provide competition for the first-team squad.

In the mix of the trialists were a Swedish international and a couple of players who had previously played for Charlton Athletic or Fulham, so there were definitely a few involved who were competent enough to go straight into the first-team.

I came away impressed by the quality and the standard having not seen much women’s football before. There was an obvious gulf in class between some of the players, particularly the first-team ones and the experienced trialists versus the rest, but the signs were encouraging and there’s plenty the coaching staff can work with.

It was impressive to witness technical ability that I myself wished I had. One of the players was a bundle of tricks, could shoot with venom and accuracy with both feet and had great physical presence and awareness too. One or two others showed moments of great feet and vision as well.

The trials consisted of the trialists taking part in some short technical based drills by the Ladies first-team coach Tony. This was done to assess their technical ability and then three 15-minute matches were organised where the first-team players joined in.

The teams were mixed and the coaching staff swapped the teams about and changed players positions to assess their overall game.

The trialists will find out how they fared by first-team manager Martino tomorrow so good luck to all the ladies who attended!

I took some photos of the day too and they can be found below.

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The QPR Ladies team are on the lookout for new players ahead of the coming season and will be holding trials on Sunday. I’m going to pop along to see what’s going on and with a bit of luck I may grab some photos too.

It will be interesting to see what type of quality there will be on the day and the type of players the Ladies team are looking for and I’m really looking forward to it.

For any ladies out there interested in particpating in these trials, you should contact Martino Chevennes at martinoc@qpr.co.uk.