Earlier this month, Manchester United announced that they have applied to the English Football Association to launch their first senior professional women's team.
Should the application be successful, the club would see the team begin life in the second tier of the Women’s Super League.
Despite being one of the biggest clubs in world in the men's game, that absence of senior representation in the women's game during the Super League era had set them apart from their domestic rivals like Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Everton who among others all have and have had women's teams with Arsenal particularly successful over the years and Manchester City and Chelsea now enjoying preeminence.
This week on our Off The Bench podcast, Cliona Foley was joined by BBC Sports Online's West Country journalist Tom Garry to discuss the development and what it means for women's football.
"I think it's a very, very significant move. The women's game has been crying out for this for 13 years now since Manchester United disbanded their original women's senior side," Garry told Cliona.
"The reaction has been pretty much overwhelmingly positive except with that sort of tone of last or 'Hallelujah' rather than congratulations."
Garry explained why the club has made the move now and not before.
Cliona was also joined by journalists Sinead Farrell and Emma Duffy to discuss some of the main talking points in women's sport over the past fortnight.
You can listen to that and the full interview with Tom Garry on the podcast player or on iTunes.
