A group of female footballers from the Bascome Futbol Leadership Academy drew inspiration from Bermuda forward Nia Christopher on a recent trip to Baltimore.

The touring group of nine girls aged between 10 and 13, made the trip to the United States to train with David Bascome, coach of Baltimore Blast and owner of BFLA, who also arranged friendly matches for them.

Coached in Bermuda by Karl Roberts, the national women’s team assistant coach, at Saltus Grammar School, the team was making their first return to Baltimore since the end of the pandemic.

The team travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to watch Christopher play her final match for Eagle FC against Northern Virginia. It was Christopher’s last semi-professional match before her switch to Fort Lauderdale United FC for the inaugural USL Super League season.

Christopher, 23, has been associated with the BFLA since the age of 13 and was part of their spring-summer team workshops for three years.

Crystal Pittendrigh, the BFLA programme manager, said the aspiring footballers had an excellent experience.

“The girls met Nia Christopher and they watched her play in her last semi-professional before she turns professional,” Pittendrigh told The Royal Gazette.

“It was so exciting for them to walk on to the pitch with the semi-professional players. It was a really cool experience for them to see the older girls play at that level, and they also hung around the sidelines while the girls were training.

“It was awesome for the girls to see a Bermudian playing semi-professionally. It was also great just watching the other girls seeing how good they were.

“I do believe Nia Christopher was part of this programme and she’s one of the girls who were there at the beginning.

“The experience for the girls was amazing because they got to do a lot of training they don’t typically do in Bermuda.

“They really enjoyed training sessions and they were training six hours a day and playing matches.

“What surprised me is that they couldn't get enough of the activities they were doing. I thought they would be tired.”

Parent chaperone, Alan Pittendrigh, was pleased with the way Bascome conducted the training sessions.

“Bascome made the girls work really hard and pulled no punches,’’ he said. “The training was not a holiday, but intense coaching, and you could see the girls took the lessons on board when they played their games.”

Mikayla Mellis, Bascome’s public relations officer, described the time the Bermudian girls spent in Baltimore as being worthwhile.

“We had great time meeting and working with the girls, it was a fun week,” she said.