'We've got to keep pushing': How QPR is rejuvenating their women's team with an eye on WSL 2
Inside QPR's ambitious plans with their CEO, head of women's football and more
Will Lambert doesn’t want to give a specific timeline. After all, the Queens Park Rangers men’s team have had four-year plans before.
But QPR’s head of women’s football is absolutely clear when he says that the west London club are targeting at least one promotion over the next few seasons.
“We are trying to achieve success, to get out of tier four in the earliest opportunity possible,” Lambert said to a roundtable of journalists last week.
“We’re not going to shy away from the fact that we want success for QPR Women. We’re trying to put them on the pathway of success, wherever that may take them, whether that’s to the WSL or WSL2.”
QPR Women currently play in the National League Division One South East (tier four), below the National League (tier three). The 12-team league will see the winner promoted, while the second-placed team will head to a playoff.
“It’s very good timing that there’s also become a playoff space available this season, thanks to the increase in teams within the WSL. We’re trying to get out of this division and into tier three as soon as possible.”
With the likes of Fulham, Norwich and former WSL2 club London Bees all playing in the National League Division One South East, QPR are not the only team making grand plans for promotion.
“We do have very noisy neighbours and very competitive teams in our league,” Lambert said with a smile.
Fourth-placed QPR trail Norwich City, who sit second, by nine points, while unbeaten Fulham sit top, 10 points ahead of QPR. It is worth noting that the only team to take a point off Fulham this season was QPR, who snatched a 1–1 draw against their local rivals in October.
“We’re aligned”
Lambert doesn’t mince his words when breaking down the major changes that have happened at QPR over the last 18 months – in particular, the alignment and resource-sharing of QPR’s men’s and women’s teams.
Having joined QPR in 2022 as an academy operations director, Lambert took over directing the women’s team in the summer of 2024. The move coincided with QPR Women coming under the same umbrella as the men’s team – both metaphorically and literally.
“I think there’s something actually really special about everybody being under one roof and being able to share their experiences of what it means to be a QPR player or QPR member of staff, regardless of which team you’re working with,” said QPR chief executive Christian Nourry.
After years of being run by QPR’s community trust, the women’s team is now run by QPR proper. That means QPR Women now train at the same state-of-the-art training centre, have access to the medical team and are even advised by the same data and recruitment staff as the men.
On a day-to-day basis, QPR Women have gone from training two nights a week on an artificial pitch at a local college to three times a week at QPR’s elite training centre.
“We have a very structured programme that we have in place that focuses on player development and improving those players in-house that we have. So we have two team training sessions on a Tuesday and a Thursday, and then an individual development plan specific evening on a Friday that is focused on making those players the best players possible,” Lambert explained.
“We have a performance coach who works full-time within the club and a medical lead who works part-time at the club. We’re aligned across our recruitment strategies so that our recruitment managers who work across our men’s team also have a focus within the women’s department.”
The 2025–26 season is the first in which QPR will have a full-time first-team head coach, Danny Harrigan. Alongside Harrigan, there are two assistant coaches within the setup.
Harrigan worked at QPR Women 10 years ago, but never thought he would have the chance to come back as a full-time head coach of the senior first team.
“I think the standard of the league this year has gone up once again. I think we’ve seen it in some of the individuals that we’ve managed to recruit, that the standard of the league is just moving so quickly,” Harrigan said.
Harrigan’s roots have been in the youth setup at QPR, which was the first home of England’s Chloe Kelly. The plan is to continue to build a pathway for girls to come into QPR at youth level and progress to the first team, while also acknowledging that QPR do not currently have a professional academy, meaning academy talents of Kelly’s level could still move further up the football pyramid.
“When they walk through the door and when they sign with QPR Women, they’re assigned an individual development plan by our head coach, Danny [Harrigan]. Then also a physical development plan, and they’re supported with three gym sessions per week, which follow our training sessions. So every individual player has a very specific plan that’s unique to them,” said Lambert.
“I think we’re a very ambitious club”
Emily Hill is one of those who came up through QPR’s youth ranks, went away to play collegiate soccer in the United States, then went on to play for Watford in WSL2 and the National League before rejoining QPR in 2023.
“I think that QPR has come a long way,” said Hill. “You’ve got all the support and stuff now, of the training ground, the staff, like you’ve got all of that now, and that just shows our development and how far it’s come. But, yeah, I think we’re a very ambitious club.
“To go from a 14-year-old playing, to now being captain in the team playing at Loftus Road, it’s amazing. It’s just a great feeling to be where we are now.”
“Flourish and grow”
With the on-pitch foundations in place to slowly give the QPR women’s team more elite tools and push them into a more semi-professional environment, the next step is building the team’s connection with the fans.
And in the short term, that means playing more at Loftus Road, where the team recently broke an attendance record with over 2,300 watching them draw 2-2 with Luton Town.
For Nourry, getting the women’s team playing at Loftus Road is an important part of increasing the team’s visibility and connection to the existing fanbase on the men’s side.
“We’ve had a sharp focus on trying to get the women’s team into a position where it can flourish and grow,” said Nourry. “Slowly, we’re really starting to see this, this connection grow between our fan base and our women’s team.”
Of course, women’s football fans aren’t always men’s football fans, and Nourry is aware that reaching people who want to see QPR Women – and not the QPR men’s team – is part of the club’s investment.
“The next challenge is can we go one step further and reach people who don’t really know what QPR is, but are excited about women’s football, and want to have role models in women’s football.”
Even with all this ambition comes a desire to stay humble. Like the vast majority of English football clubs, QPR are not currently profitable. Investment in QPR Women is not a business opportunity in Nourry’s mind so much as it is the “right thing” to do.
“I think we’ve got to have humility. There probably a lot of people in positions like mine at clubs that may be a little further along in their women’s journey, who have more credibility to sit here and say, we’ve jumped into into focusing on the women’s game because we see it as a revenue generating opportunity.
“I think we are, at the moment, humbly, a while away from that. Really, the focus at the moment is, how do we get more people to be connected with QPR, and how can we support the women’s team? Because ultimately, it’s just the correct thing to do and build connections between young fans and players over the course of this journey to the point that, hopefully we’ll be able to grow the support for the women’s team in the years to come, to be in a situation when we can talk about filling out Loftus Road.”
The club’s multi-year plan for sustained success is already underway. And perhaps many will look back on this moment – when the club realigned itself with the women’s team – as the spark that lit the match.