The Comets
How it all started...
The initial idea was floating around in 1998 as part of playing football at London School of Law. In 1999, things got more formalised, we started playing other teams, and we named ourselves the Comets - because we were like burning lights streaking across the football field. And, we likened ourselves to Los Galácticos, so the Comets seemed like a good match.
In 2000, we joined the Greater London League Division 4. We didn't have a coach, it wasn't rolling subs and we were beaten a lot (usually by 10-0 or 13-2). But - we loved playing and persisted. There were several games played on pitches littered with goose poo (still happens), one under humming electricity pillons where all our hair went static, and one against a team called the Flamingoes where the striker took her boot off and kissed it when she scored her third hat-trick against us.
In addition to the football, we also had some amazing tours to other countries: Halmstad, Stockholm, Paris, Dublin, and Barcelona. While exploring the world, we dropped out of the league for a few years.
And then, we found our tin tin-lookalike coach at a 5-aside tournament, who decided to coach us and has stuck with us ever since (although he has claimed to have "retired" now). We re-entered the league at Division 4, and we started to work our way up.
Originally, we were all lawyers who knew each other from Law School, but over time various girlfriends and friends joined. Then, we had an influx of Scandi, followed by Canadian and American stars. We won the league a few times, rising up to the Greater London Women's League Premier Division. The Scandi moved on, but most of the Canadians and Americans have stayed and are still playing. More recently, we won the Capital Cup in 2019 and we were runners up in the Premier Division 2022-2023 season.
We used to play at Clapham Common (although we were never called Clapham Comets!), and nowadays we play our games at Barn Elms Sport Trust. We train on a semi bi-weekly basis, but most of us play football elsewhere too (e.g. mixed 5-aside), and some of us think it is fun to run a marathon. We recently got approved as an England Football Accredited Club.
We give it our all on Sundays, enjoy playing and hope for the best.