New Tonbridge Angels chair Sophie Purves on exciting times at Longmead and how she was asked to move to a separate room for women while a director at York City

It’s perhaps fitting that a club as progressive as Tonbridge Angels have one of the few female chairs in football.

Positive, forward-thinking, full of ideas, and with the passion and energy to make them happen, Sophie Purves is the perfect fit at Longmead.

Times have certainly changed since Purves’ early days in boardrooms as a 26-year-old director at York City back in 2003.

But it’s still a rare sight to see a football club led by a woman.

For while the Premier League and the FA both have female chairs, it’s believed League 1 outfit Port Vale are the only club above National League South Tonbridge to have a woman at the helm.

Purves worked at Manchester City after graduating from Newcastle University before spending 13 years on the board at hometown club York.

Work brought the family down south in 2016 and Purves - introduced to Tonbridge by then-goalkeeper coach Adam Deadman - got involved at Longmead towards the end of 2020.

She was voted on to the board of the fan-owned club, becoming chair when Dave Netherstreet stood down at the end of last season.

“It’s still quite rare to find a lady chair,” said Purves.

“I was 26 when I first became a director at York, which was quite young, so that was even rarer.

“It was very different 20 years ago.

“Going back to 2003, there was a club we visited that had a separate room for women, which I was asked to go into, and didn’t.

“Fortunately my fellow board members, which included family members as well, were very supportive and said, ‘No, she’s a director, she needs to be in the same room as the rest of the directors’.

“So it has improved but obviously we want to see more women in football.

“At Tonbridge, we have a female physio, a female events and hospitality manager and a