Mel Reay: Women’s Football Weekend ‘absolutely huge’ for the game with Sunderland, Manchester United, Chelsea and Everton all in action

With many matches in the Premier League and EFL postponed due to the international break, the spotlight will once again be on the women’s game.

Now in its third year, Women’s Football Weekend encourages fans to go and support their team whether they are in the Women’s Super League or further down the pyramid in grassroots football.

This season it will take on extra significance, as not only can supporters watch the action from home, but they will be welcomed back into stadiums after last year’s event was forced to be played behind closed doors.

And Reay, who takes her side to Watford in the Women’s Championship on Sunday, can’t believe how far the game has come since her playing days.

She told safc.com: “It’s absolutely huge. I go back to when I played for this football club compared to where it is now. It’s an unbelievable difference, especially the standard we’re at now and the standard we want to go to as well.

“You can watch the games live Sky Sports; when I played, I don’t think any games were videoed so it’s certainly come a long way in such a short space of time and long may it continue to get better.”

Across Women’s Football Weekend, every Super League and Championship match will be shown live, starting on Saturday with Tottenham hosting Arsenal in the north London derby on BBC before attention turns to Sunday where Everton face Manchester United and champions Chelsea travel to Manchester City – both on Sky Sports.

Matches in the top two tiers which have not been selected for broadcast will be shown on the FA Player, including Sunderland’s trip to London on Sunday (3.30pm KO) where Reay will be hoping her side will bounce back from a frustrating 2-0 home defeat to London City Lionesses last time out.

She added: “There’s a lot of publicity, lots of coverage and it’s great that every game is going to be live on the FA Player. It’s fantastic opportunity for the fans to follow back home so hopefully we put on a show and come back with the three points.”

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