Manchester City Women

The 2025–26 double came down to arithmetic in the end: City finished on 55 points and a goal difference of +43, and it was Arsenal's draw with Brighton that confirmed the Women's Super League title rather than anything City did on the final day themselves. Four days apart, in the same season, they beat Brighton & Hove Albion 4–0 to add the FA Women's Cup, the club's fourth. The first WSL title, in 2016, was won a harder way — thirteen wins and three draws, sixteen games without defeat, settled by a 2–0 win over Chelsea.

None of that was built on a professional footing until January 2014, when the club turned a group that Neil Mather, a Manchester City community officer, had put together in November 1988 as Manchester City Ladies into English football's first fully professional women's team. The partnership with the men's club that made it possible had been signed two years earlier.

The Joie Stadium, 7,000 capacity, took its current name in September 2023, when City became the first WSL club to sell the naming rights to its ground. In 2022 they became the first in the league to drop white shorts, switching to burgundy for reasons of player comfort during periods.

Steph Houghton captained the side through its title-winning years; academy graduates such as Gracie Prior have since pushed into a first team that once relied almost entirely on established signings. In Europe, two Champions League semi-finals, in 2016–17 and 2017–18, both ended against Lyon.

Across the city, Manchester United Women supply the fixture that matters most: the Manchester derby.