The club is no longer known as Wythenshawe Amateurs after promotion to the North West Counties Premier League and is also making its women players semi-professional – in line with the men’s team.

Under new chairman Sacha Lord – Greater Manchester’s Night Time Economy Adviser – there are also ambitious plans to recruit a Womens’ Director of Football and create career pathways to enable women to remain in the team and progress.

Lord – co-founder of Parklife and now the world’s favourite nightclub, The Warehouse Project – says his ambition is to run the club on the basis of equal pay, budgets and resources for its male and female players.

He said: “Football still has a long way to go in catching up with the rest of the world on equal pay and I’d like to change that at Wythenshawe. I have long admired Lewes FC which eliminated the gender pay gap years ago and who are very clear that the men’s and the women’s teams and players are valued equally.”

Born and bred in Wythenshawe, Sacha has been a long-time supporter of grassroots football and when the chance arose to take over as chairman he said he couldn’t turn it down.

He has taken charge of the club as it continues its 77-year legacy of never being relegated having beaten Stockport Town to the North West Counties Division One South title.

Wythenshawe FC’s women’s team dates back to 2008. Within a decade they were on the women's FA football ladder, in the North West Women’s Regional League where they still play.

The same season, Wythenshawe FC started a women's development team that played in the Cheshire Women’s & Youth League and they won 5-1 against Accrington Stanley at their first FA Women's Cup fixture.

There are two women’s teams and next season the club will have ten girls’ teams.

Women and Girls Captain Sophie Whitby said: “This is great news for women and girls throughout our club - showing how much we value them and how ambitious we are for them. I think it will send a really strong signal in the footballing world but also in our local community: that equality matters.

“We’ve created a really strong pathway for boys and men to semi-professional football, retaining players within the club. I firmly believe we can do this for women and girls too. I’m so proud to be a part of it.”

Wythenshawe FC Vice Chairman Carl Barratt said: “We have started a FA wildcats centre at the club for girls between the ages of 5 and 11 and this has been incredibly successful, attracting 35 girls to the club in its first year. This is the starting point for girls and women’s football at the club who want to play football, have fun and make friends.

“This is such an exciting time and we’re going to grab every opportunity we can to be at the forefront of change. It’s not just about equality either, I think it will actually help us recruit new players, members and sponsors. We very much hope other clubs will follow us in revolutionising the beautiful game from the grass-roots up.”