Chelsea FC Women duo Guro Reiten and Sophie Ingle recently surprised students at King Athelstan Primary School as part of this season’s Chelsea Challenge.
Designed to promote fitness and wellbeing, the programme is offered exclusively to schools in and around Kingsmeadow and London and provides classroom-based exercises designed to get kids moving and having fun.
Participating schools will be able to access exclusive offers including matchday tickets and school visits from Chelsea FC Women’s players and ambassadors.
This week’s event saw Reiten and Ingle travel to the school in Kingston to join Chelsea Foundation coaches for a practical session with the students before taking part in a Q&A.
Speaking at the event Ingle said: ‘We’ve come to King Athelstan to see the kids and do a Q&A with them after they did a football session with our Foundation coaches.
‘I think when they are that young you never know what type of questions you are going to get but it was really good and it was good for Guro to practice her English in front of the youngsters!
‘It’s amazing to take the time out of our schedule and do these type of things. I said to the kids that when I was there age, we never had anything like this.
‘We never really had anyone come into the school who have done well in their career and now we are the ones giving back to the community and it’s great for the children to have these type of opportunities.’
Ingle recently played her part in Chelsea FC Women’s 1-0 league win over Manchester United in front of 4,790 people, a record figure for a Women’s Super League game not played at a men’s stadium, and the midfielder is hoping more school visits will continue to help attendances rise at Kingsmeadow.
She added: ‘Hopefully visits like this to local schools will help increase our attendances at local games but also it will help for them to recognise that women’s football is on the up as well.
‘I think a lot of children prior to the rise in the women’s game wouldn’t have known that women played football or girls played football whereas now it’s accepted and I think it’s great that now more and more are coming to our games.’
Ingle and her Chelsea team-mates will be in action this weekend against second-placed Manchester City and it’s a clash not to be missed.
Tickets for the match are priced at £9 for adults and just £1 for juniors (under 20s) and seniors (65 and over).
Click to buy your tickets