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Blue Square South team Fisher Athletic will make football history tonight (Wednesday) when they will be led out for the game against Eastleigh, by a female manager. Donna Powell, a club turnstile operator, gets the chance to become manager of Fisher Athletic for one day as a reward from the club for her fund raising activities.

Twenty seven year old Powell who already runs a boys football team, insists that the team that she picks will play football her way, “None of this long ball nonsense – we’ll be passing the ball on the floor, playing the game the right way.”

In fairness Donna Powell could not possibly do any worse than current boss Dave Mehmet, Athletic have lost their last ten games and are currently one point of bottom place in the Blue Square South league. A good result against Eastleigh tonight would certainly be a boost for the team and the Fisher press officer Joe Arif may not have been joking when he said  “If  Donna can turn things around, then who knows – Maybe there is a permanent position in  future.”

The fairy tale story has not gone down so well with Eastleigh however, the Hampshire club are currently third in the league and are serious contenders for promotion to the Blue Square Premier. Their director of football David Malone believes that the appointment  “devalues the league.”

Of course Malone has a valid point and backs up his case with an intelligent and articulate argument;

“I’m not particularly happy about it, simply because we’ve got to concentrate our minds on getting three points from the game. I think what they’ve done is unprofessional. Fisher have done it for financial reasons, and I can partly understand that, but I don’t think being manager of  a Blue Square South team is a saleable commodity. I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man – which I probably do – but at this stage of the season we’re working extremely hard to get our side up into the Blue Square Premier, and I think the whole thing is just badly timed.”

However, Donna Powell has done nothing untoward and has been rewarded by her employers for her devotion to the team.  Good luck to her in fulfilling a dream that will make her the envy of every football fan in the country.