Birmingham City Ladies FC

Good news for Blues. Former Blues duo, Faye Cardin and Michelle Hickmott will join Birmingham City ladies for the new campaign, with possibly two more ex-Charlton players set to join.

Chalton Ladies shock demise

The sad and shocking news that hit women's football this week (23rd June 2007) was the demise of Charlton Athletic's ladies division.

There now seems to be a worrying trend growing that any ladies team under the men's banner will get dropped and be financially cut off, as was the case with Fulham last season and Blues the season before that.

Good news for Blues

Charlton's sad demise might benefit Blues, but manager Laura Harvey has refused to name the other targets.

Laura Harvey

"We are talking to two others about moving following the news about Charlton," she confirmed.

"We want to stress our desire to strengthen the club year on year but the biggest threats to us are Chelsea, who are throwing money around this season, and Arsenal, who will always be able to cherry-pick the players they want."

Harvey was also coy about another big-name player she has arranged talks with next week.

As for the current squad of players, captain fantastic Laura Bassett has again been called up for the last World Cup warm-up get-together at Bisham Abbey.

The defender will join Hope Powell’s squad from July 8-12 ahead of September’s World Cup tournament in China.

The England Under 19s squad, including Birmingham City ladies players Becky Hall, Heather Scheuber and Chelsea Weston, have been drawn in the same group as France, Spain and Poland for the European Championships in Iceland this month.

As for Blues, with the new season beckoning they return to pre-season training at Birmingham University on Sunday.