“Surreal” – QPR boss Danny Harrigan on rise of women’s football | OneFootball

Danny Harrigan

When QPR of the FA Women’s National League Division One South-East face Luton Town at Loftus Road this weekend, it will be one of the most significant matches in their history.

It’s a development that shows how seriously the club is now taking its women’s team. England heroine Chloe Kelly is famously a QPR youth graduate, but they have never been in the top tier of the domestic league since its 2011 revamp .

Danny Harrigan is the man charged with steering them on that path. QPR’s first-ever full-time women’s head coach, he has been coaching in women’s football for over a decade, and he has seen some notable changes. At the start of the season, when he became full-time, he mentioned that he had been looking at his recruitment since the previous September.

Chloe Kelly with Christian Nourry, the QPR CEO, at the men’s match against Bristol City, EFL Sky Bet Championship, Football, MATRADE Loftus Road, London, UK – 12 Apr 2025 (Andrew Fosker/Shutterstock)

“We’re always looking at what players are out there,” he told SheKicks.net. “With the PGA [professional game academy] systems now that the FA have implemented across the country, there’s a lot of young players in there that will be looking for exit routes out of there.

“When we’re looking at recruitment now, we’re keeping one eye on who the girls are in those systems that potentially may not be getting offered the professional contracts they’re looking for or they’re looking for senior minutes. That’s where we spent a large amount of time, just looking around the PGA systems, and just trying to keep an eye and build relationships with those clubs to ensure that if those girls are looking for minutes and they live in our catchment area, then QPR is a place that they come and look at.”

Having that amount of time and support to dedicate solely to recruitment is a huge change.

“When I first started out, a lot of it was tapping into the existing players that you have in the building and do they know anyone?” he recalls. “Most of the time [recruitment was devoted to] anyone who’s a goalkeeper or just relying on some of our contacts, and that was the way it was – whereas now we’re in recruitment meetings where there’s standing room only because the team is so big and the pool of players is getting bigger. It’s surreal that we’ve got a recruitment team looking at it.”

Harrigan: Our ambitions are clear

And this is just the first step on the path when it comes to QPR’s ambitions. This season, the second-place teams from all four regional tier 4 leagues will go into a play-off for promotion to the Premier Division. The sides from Division One North and Division One Midlands will face each other for one place, and the two from Division One South West and Division One South East for the other spot.

QPR currently sit fourth in the table.

“We want to be challenging to get up into tier 3,” Harrigan says.

“The league this year is probably going to go probably right down to the wire. But we know where we came from, where we’re trying to get to, and we’re taking baby steps, but we’re ambitious and we’re aiming for that play-off spot as a minimum. If we can get there, great. But I think no matter how this season goes, the women’s team and the plan we’ve got on the pitch and off the pitch is still going to be the same. So if we can achieve it in year one, great. If it takes a little bit longer, then we’re more than comfortable with that.

“I think this year that [extra play-off] promotion spot has really added a little bit of excitement, especially in our building. But I know speaking to other managers and clubs, it’s something that everyone is definitely looking forward to seeing how that progresses as we go throughout the season.”

QPR face Luton Town at Loftus Road on Sunday, 16th November – and will look to break their attendance record for a women’s match.