EXCLUSIVE: Why Crystal Palace boss Jo Potter wants all female coaches to succeed | OneFootball

Jo Potter (Crystal Palace Twitter)

Crystal Palace boss Jo Potter says her team know they will have a tough game in front of them as they travel to third-tier Lewes in the third round of the Women’s FA Cup.

But she says that should be a good thing as they then go on to face Bristol City in the league on Wednesday – and Arsenal in the quarter-final of the Subway Women’s League Cup next weekend.

“It’s never an easy tie [against Lewes],” she told SheKicks.net. “It’s been chosen for one of the broadcasting ties, so it just shows you the level of the tie that we’ve had.

“So it’s not an easy game, but it’s one of those that hopefully gives us enough possession to be able to prepare properly for the next few games and what this run-in [to the Christmas break] looks like. 

“Sometimes if you drop down a lot, it’s difficult to bring yourself back up from those levels in terms of the level of the opponent that you’re playing against. 

“And we’re not doing that on Sunday. 

“It’s a tough opponent that are really building a strong foundation and have really stabilised at the moment in the league, so it’s going to be a hard test for us. We’ve got three very hard games in a week leading up to Christmas. 

“It’s a difficult one. It could be a sticky one, but we want to make sure that it’s not.”

Jo Potter: We should all be fighting for more

And Potter also praised Lewes’s ongoing commitment to and campaign for an Equal FA Cup.

“The game’s progressing at a rate now that you can see the improvements all over,” she said, “and I think that’s something that we’ve always asked for.

“For me, I think it has to be sustainable and it has to be in a way that makes it the longevity and the competition in the game last for many years to come – and I think we’re seeing that, we’re seeing an increase in prize money, we’re seeing an increase in attendances and it’s a sustainable rate. 

“I think it’s great everything that Lewis are doing and putting the game at the forefront and wanting better. That’s what we all want.  I think everybody should be fighting to want more, ask for more, produce more, because that’s what comes on the back end of it – you’ve got to start producing on the back end of it. 

“So I think it’s brilliant. What they’re doing is great for the women’s game, and we all want to be a part of that. “

Potter: I want every female coach to go and do great things

The tie also gives Potter the chance to renew an old rivalry with Lewes manager Emma Byrne – a playing contemporary of hers.

And she says that she is pleased to see more women and more ex-players going into coaching.

“I’m a big advocate of it. We’ve got a female technical staff here at Palace – I‘ve got Remi Allen that’s been involved in FA Cup runs and Annabel Johnson that’s been around the game for a long, time.  

“So it’s huge and it’s really nice to see because there’s obviously been a time where we’ve come through a period where it was easy not to maybe choose coaching. We could have gone into the media and the broadcasting and the punditry side of it, where there was potentially a lot more money to be made. 

“But I think you’re seeing a real, core group of women now that want the game to grow and want to pass on their knowledge and information that they’ve got that they’ve experienced throughout the many, many years of playing and getting those accolades that you’ve earned along the way. 

“So it’s great to see. I want every single one of those female coaches to go on and do great things and hopefully we can share memories further down the way.”