Albion Women Interim Head Coach Martyn Irvine says he saw plenty to be “excited” by in their first pre-season outing of 2026/27.
The Baggies visited Swindon Town at Foundation Park in Irvine’s maiden match in charge, and were narrowly beaten 2-1.
17 players featured in navy-blue-and-white in Wiltshire, and after watching his Albion side for the first time, Martyn was delighted with how everyone “applied themselves.”
He said: “I’m really pleased and really proud. We’ve asked the girls to adopt a new style and I’ve found it really pleasing.
“We dominated the ball for large parts of the game, and considering we’ve only got the group together for a couple of weeks now, we’ve done really well. I’m pleased with how they’ve performed.
“We saw a lot of dominance with the ball, and we’ve had different players with the group. I have to give a shoutout to the U18s who played with us today, they were fantastic in a senior setting and that shows the pathway that’s now growing within the club.
“Everyone’s applied themselves really well and we’ve had a really positive performance across the pitch.
“Today gives me a lot of confidence and it massively excites me. We were due to play earlier this week and that didn’t happen, but to get on the pitch today for the first game, that was great. I’m really excited about what’s to come.
“It’s one game, and it’s the first test, we have to remain level headed about today. What we’ve got in the building is really exciting, and we only hope to add to that across the next few weeks.
“The attitude, the effort and application has been absolutely outstanding from the group.
“It was a different type of game. We had a lot of the ball and it became a bit transitional at times, it took us time to get used to that but we’ll come up against different tests in our league this season.
“I’m really looking forward to challenging myself and the group against some tough opposition.”
