Thanks to the Lionesses, football’s finally come home
Watching last night’s match at Wembley, or rather at half-time, I remembered an article in The Spectator ten or a dozen years ago. The writer’s early teenage son, starved of football on a foreign holiday, discovered to his delight that an international — perhaps Brazil v Sweden — could be watched on a local TV station that afternoon or evening. Then, he switched off, reporting with disgust “it’s women’s football, Dad”.
Well, that boy is now grown-up and I wouldn’t be surprised if he watched the Lionesses in yesterday’s match with delight, and did so not only because England have at last beaten Germany in a final, but because it offered good and entertaining football. It would indeed have been a cracking match even if the somewhat scrambled extra-time winner had come from a German boot rather than from England’s Chloe Kelly.
Women’s football has a long history, even if there were fifty years from 1921 when the FA prohibited Football League clubs from staging women’s matches on the ground that football was a game unsuitable for women. That judgement looks ridiculous as well as offensive today, but, in fairness to the old dinosaurs, one might remember that even half a century later there were no 5000 or 10000-metre races for women in the Olympics, the distance being thought too demanding for them. This was bizarre because even between the wars there were women’s international cross-country races.
The surge in popularity of women’s football, reflected in that 87,000 crowd at Wembley is, of course, very recent. After all, it is not long since Victoria Beckham and Coleen Rooney, wives of England’s football captains, were very much better known than any woman footballer. Footballer’s WAGS (wives and girl-friends) were celebrities as no woman who kicked the ball and scored goals ever was. This European Cup should change that, even if there is still some way to go before the Lionesses are as well known as England’s male football stars, few of whom have ever, had to juggle other jobs, while establishing themselves as footballers. Unlike the centre back Millie Bright, who previously juggled working in leisure centres and as a stable hand with playing football.
There was something very refreshing about last night’s match and indeed about the tournament as a whole. There was something old-fashioned about it for anyone who, like me, has rather fallen out of love with the often ten arid professionalism and safety-first efficiency of the modern men’s game, which so often sees long phases of unchallenged inter-passing by two, three or four defenders in their otherwise empty half of the field, and vain attempts to find a way through blanket defences. It was a very important match — the most important any of the Lionesses will ever have played, and no doubt, their approach, guided by their Dutch coach, Sarina Wiegman, was highly professional. Nor was it free of the niggling and obstruction that characterises the men’s game. Yet there was also a freshness and sense of enjoyment about their play, also — if it’s not an insult — something of the amateur spirit, a game played for fun.
Will this victory change society’s view on women far beyond the football field as some have suggested? Or is it perhaps rather evidence of how completely that change is already underway or has already taken place? It’s no longer a man’s world, and quite right too, even if some of us oldies are sometimes bemused by the different landscape we have survived into, even at times resentful of it — if, also, one hopes — ashamed of such a feeling.
We are, it seems, about to have another female Prime Minister and there are numerous walks of life, such as universities, publishing, the City, and the media – where women were not so very long ago rarely more than junior employees, but are now equals or chief executives.
The huge crowd at Wembley reflects a change that has been underway for a long time. Some sports have, for easily identifiable reasons, moved faster than others. This has perhaps been easier in minority sports, but it is coming everywhere. Women’s football has been given a huge boost by the Lionesses. The next step is for the club game to profit from the new popularity and celebrity. One can see signs of this already in the much greater coverage in the press, radio and television given to women’s sport in general.
In those sports in which some degree of equality has long been established women stars have long been celebrities. Tennis is an obvious example. It is almost a hundred years since Suzanne Lenglen was as bright a star as any of the male champions of her time. Of course, men will always have certain physical advantages which is why direct competition between male and female teams will remain impossible, but there are others where this is not the case. Rachel Blackmore has ridden the winner of the Grand National and Hollie Doyle has won classics on the Flat.
The days of discrimination and “women can’t do that” are surely over. After all, the Lionesses have achieved more than any England men’s team, sporting the Three Lions, since Bobby Moore led England to a World Cup triumph in 1966. And they did this while attracting a record crowd and watched by tens of millions on TV.