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Four months after being fired from Tottenham Hotspur Women, Karen Hills has a new job. The former Spurs Women manager, who led the club for over a decade and led them through three promotions to the top flight of English women’s football, was hired as manager of FA Women’s Championship club Charlton Athletic Women today.
✍️ Charlton Athletic Women are delighted to announce the appointment of Karen Hills as Head Coach.
— Charlton Athletic Women (@CAFCWomen) March 16, 2021
https://t.co/Sm6RBdgGGf #cafc #cafcwomen pic.twitter.com/cKFJ8ntiWL
Hills obviously has a ton of experience managing at this level (and below). She took Spurs from an amateur club playing in the fourth division of the pyramid and shepherded them to a fully professional side over a decade, and that’s tough to do. She’ll be asked to do something similar at Charlton, as the Addicks are transitioning to become a fully professional club starting this July.
It also makes sense because Hills has history with Charlton — she spent six years there as a player between 2001-2007, and is familiar with the club and how they operate.
Weirdly, current head coach Riteesh Mishra is apparently staying on at the club, as stated in the press release. I have no idea how that works!
The current Charlton Athletic Women’s coaching staff, led by Riteesh Mishra, remains in place and Hills will meet the first team on Tuesday evening ahead of her first training session with the club.
Charlton historically has had an excellent women’s football organization, but it has floundered in recent years. Hills clearly wants to revitalize the club. Thankfully, we won’t have to worry about Tottenham Women facing Hills anytime soon — they’re currently ninth out of 11 clubs in the FAWC and won’t be promoting this season.
Hills’ co-head coach at Tottenham, Juan Amoros, is also back working as well. Amoros was appointed head coach of Real Betis Femininas in Spain’s Primera Division in January.