SAHA Girls going for cup glory
Shrewsbury’s SAHA Tigers Under-11 Girls have marked their impressive progress by reaching the semi-finals of the 2026 Shropshire Management Cup.
The team has stayed together largely unchanged since its inception in 2023 under a progression of three managers and currently under the leadership of Nick Hunt, and has become a real tour de force in girls' grassroots football.
It was originally created by Jason Hole, whose motivation was to help promote an antidote to children's learning difficulties, such as autism and ADHD that he realised was inhibiting children’s learning at school.
Football provides a remedy as it encourages and necessitates co-operation, listening, mutual respect, teamwork, exercise, and learning together about failure and success.
SAHA Under-11s are now a testimony to what talent, hard work, dedication, and commitment can create.
Nick has capitalised on the efforts put in by his two predecessors - Jason Hole and Jim Nicholson - who respectively created and then nurtured the team from a bunch of cart-wheeling crazy eight-year-olds into a team whose dedication, effort and strategy mirror that of a professional team.
Seeing themselves get stronger, fitter and better at playing boosts their confidence and makes the coaches very proud.
They have progressed through the stages of the Management Cup to meet Bridgnorth Under-11s on Saturday at at Friars Playing Fields, Bridgnorth in a shootout for a final place.
