At the end of last season, we ran a competition to find our best Junior Reporters. To enter, participants were asked to submit no more than five questions they would like to ask one of our first team players - as if they were interviewing them for the Impetus Womens' Football site, Radio Derby, Derby Evening Telegraph, She Kicks magazine, the BBC’s “Women’s Football Show”, Sky Sports’ “Inside the WSL” or similar.

An expert football panel, including Impetus' editor Ben Gilby, Jen O’Neill the Editor of She Kicks Magazine and Faye Hackwell, freelance journalist and blog writer for Her Game Too - chose the overall winners in each of three age categories:

Katie-Louise Smith (Wildcats/u8 Pumas)
Edie Hill (U9,Jaguars/U10 Lionesses)
Polly Hill (u11 Phoenix/u12 Bobcats)

With “highly commended” entries from Zoe Topps, Lucy Topps, Megan Walters and Betsy Pilkington.

The winners each received prizes of a year’s subscription to She Kicks magazine, the chance to put their questions to one of our first team players and to see their interviews published on our website, on the Impetus Football website and by She Kicks magazine.

The judges were extremely impressed by the quality of the entries – here’s some of the things had they had to say:

“These was a host of fine questions from all entrants. I'd happily – and in some cases actually have done – use lots of these in interviews with players.”
“Great questions - creative and moving further away from the sorts of questions that players always get asked.”
“Offered something unique and were likely to lead to interesting and memorable answers from the interviewee, which would give the audience an insight into their personality and ambitions as a player.”
“I really like that none of the questions allow 'yes/no' answers. They ask the player to think about and explain their answer. I like questions that make the player think about themselves and gives them the chance to offer their personality and view of their style, in such a concise way!”
“There was something personal and quirky about these questions and I think an interviewee would respond to that. A good question/interview needs the person who is offering the answers to be engaged and actually want to offer information. It's a conversation.”
“I liked how the interviewer used her own personal experiences within her questions, which helps the audience to relate to both the interviewee and the interviewer themselves and makes it a more engaging conversation to follow.”
“What I particularly like is that there is a flow and an order to her questions. They make sense and it comes through that the interviewer wants some insight into how the player prepares for games and looks to improve.”
“Open-ended questions with "why" at the end are always great and gives the interviewee an opportunity to open up further. Great creative questions.”

The standard of the entries was certainly impressive – there’s a definitely a few budding reporters in our ranks!

The interviews with players from our 1st (Ladies) team have now been completed and over the coming weeks we will be publishing interviews with 1st team captain Tash Allderidge, and strikers Summer Evans and Beth Jones, as well as an interview, with a small group of 1st team players, comprising “the best of the rest” – the best questions from the entries that didn’t quite win but were nevertheless highly commended.