Watford Women

Watford sit in the third tier looking to arrest the promotion-relegation cycle that has defined the past four years.

The side traces back to 1970, when Watford supporters formed a ladies' team known for years as the Willy Walker Watford Wonders. The switch to the current name came only in August 2020, once the women's team had been folded fully into Watford's structure. When the men's club chose not to apply for a Women's Super League licence in 2017-18, the grassroots and elite squads broke away and ran as an independent operation before returning to the fold.

Home games are played some distance from Vicarage Road, at Kings Langley's Gaywood Park, known now as the Orbital Fasteners Stadium, where 274 of the 2,100 capacity are seated. The yellow and black kit is borrowed straight from the men's team, and it is under that colour scheme that the Golden Girls, as they are known, have built a small list of titles: the FA Women's National League Southern Division in 2022-23 sits alongside an earlier Southern Division championship from 2006-07, either side of a run of five Hertfordshire County FA Women's Challenge Cup wins in the 2000s.

An arrangement with Arsenal has fed younger players through the squad, among them Michelle Agyemang before she moved on to full England recognition. The fixture against Luton Town, played as the M1 Derby, remains the one date that cuts through whichever division either club happens to be in.