Forest Green Rovers appoint first female head coach in English men’s professional football
Forest Green Rovers have appointed Hannah Dingley as their caretaker head coach, making her the first female to take charge of a men’s team at a professional English football club.
Dingley, 39, will be in the dugout for the League Two club’s pre-season friendly at Melksham Town on Wednesday night after being given her role following Duncan Ferguson’s departure from the New Lawn stadium.
The Welsh coach has been the only woman in charge of an EFL men’s academy and has held that position since 2019. She will oversee the preparations for the season after Ferguson only won a single game following his appointment in January, which led to relegation from the third tier.
We can confirm that Hannah Dingley has been named our Caretaker Head Coach.
Dingley will take charge of the team for tomorrow night’s friendly at Melksham Town.#WeAreFGR💚— Forest Green Rovers (@FGRFC_Official) July 4, 2023
“I’m really excited for this next step of my career,” Dingley said. “Pre-season has just begun and the full season kicks off very soon. It’s an exciting time in football. I am grateful for the opportunity to step up and lead such a progressive and forward-thinking club.”
Two years ago Emma Hayes was linked with the AFC Wimbledon job but labelled it an insult to suggest it would be a step up from women’s football at the time.
Last month, Telegraph Sport reported that Brentford were to appoint former Leicester City women’s team manager Lydia Bedford as the new head coach of their Under-18s boys side in a landmark moment for women coaching. Now, Dingley will now become the first woman to take charge of a professional men’s team in English football.
“Hannah was the natural choice for us to be first-team interim head coach – she’s done a fantastic job leading our academy and is well aligned with the values of the club,” said Forest Green chairman Dale Vince.
“It’s perhaps telling for the men’s game that in making this appointment on merit, we’ll break new ground – and Hannah will be the first female head coach in English [men’s] football.”
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In stadium offices built from wood, the club owner who prides himself on symbolic innovation had been promising to “break some new ground” for women for some time.
Dale Vince, the Ecotricity founder who also introduced shirts made partly by coffee waste, said he was first considering a female Forest Green manager after sacking Mark Cooper in 2021. As it turned out, the club would churn through three more men, most recently Duncan Ferguson, before finally giving a woman a chance, albeit on a caretaker basis.
In that context, Dingley’s opportunity feels overdue. She said herself in March that when a woman does get a managerial opportunity with a men’s first team, it won’t be a gimmick but “because they’ve earned it”.
Dingley had been expecting the glass ceiling to be broken for some time, although she had predicted it would be another woman who would make the breakthrough first. Having already been serving as the only woman in charge of a men’s EFL academy since 2019, a local BBC broadcast team went to interview her in March.
“It will come in sooner than you think,” Dingley said of the prospect of a woman taking full charge of a men’s league team.
“The success that the Lionesses are having, that Emma Hayes is having at Chelsea. There are others, really good female coaches out there who I have more than faith in would be more than capable of coaching at a men’s level. They’re players at the end of the day. It’s football at the end of the day, that doesn’t change. I don’t think it’ll be long before you see a female on the touchline.”
Given Dingley has only been handed the role on a caretaker basis, it might have been perceived as a snub if Vince had considered anyone else. Club insiders say she is one of the most popular figures within the club.
Dingley has previously said she feels a “great responsibility” as a trailblazer in the sport. She has a Uefa Pro Licence and previously worked at Burton Albion before joining Forest Green four years ago. During her tenure at the Gloucestershire club she also initiated the launch of the FGR Girls Academy in 2021, which develops female players with the same structures as the boys. On the men’s side, Harvey Bunker and Finn Bell are among talented youngsters who have made the grade with the senior side after her tutelage.
“You’ve got a responsibility as the first to open the doors for others and to encourage others,” she told the BBC Points West programme in March. “You always say if you don’t see it, you’re probably not going to be it. The fact that I do this I hope it encourages more females to come into coaching, into football, into different roles. I feel a great responsibility to talk about that.”
Dingley’s temporary role at Forest Green, comes after Championship side Norwich City and Birmingham City also added women at the top of their academies, with Jennifer Rice and Danetta Powell in operational roles.
“It is fantastic how that is changing,” she said. “That experience is making the football clubs better. It’s making the experience for the players better because we’ve got a more diverse workforce. Looking at problems differently, making clubs more successful, I just don’t know why we haven’t done it sooner.”
Dingley has wanted to embark on coaching since her teens. As she has made her name in the game, she has joke that she still gets mistaken for being a team medic or physio.
“When I started that was the only real role that a female could possibly do in football,” she said. “It is changing.”
