Womans Sport

[Mums4all]

I did watch the final of the women's Euro's even though I didn't intend to. DH was watching it and I eventually got drawn in. Neither of us watch football, we prefer rugby. That was my reasoning for not watching it.

Well done to them, the win will obviously change the face of women's football globally and that can only be a good thing.

My problem ....I have a 10 year old granddaughter who is made to play football constantly for PE. Her school employs the services of a private sports organisation that comes to the school 2-3 times a week. They are nice, male, enthusiastic young sports professionals that make the children to play football.

My DG, does not want to play football, she does though want to do a variety of sports like netball, swimming, hockey. Constantly being made to play football has dampened her enthusiasm for sport.

AIBU to think that this national obsession with woman's football is pushing some girls away from sport.

Is she in primary school or secondary school?

In primary school I got exposed to:

netball (boys and girls) because we had a parent who was a good coach happy to help
rounders, because one of our teachers liked it

And I think either another parent or a teacher taught football occasionally.

It wasn't until I went to secondary school that I got taught hockey, tennis, badminton, cricket, rugby etc etc

So if its primary school this might be all the access to external sports provision that they have.

Besides this 'national obsession' is a very recent thing and I doubt has influenced the last 6 or so years of your grand daughters sporting education

Get the school to introduce korfball. It's played by boys and girls . . . at the same time!

It's poor form of the school not to offer a range of options in pe. At least a change each term. If they genuinely always only ever do football (and not just one term a year) then I'd contact the school and ask for a chat (if you are her parent/guardian, if not suggest her mother does).

To me it doesn't sound like it's anything to do with "the nations obsession with women's football" and actually just laziness on the part of the school.

Yes sports at primary level can be a bit limited with not a lot of choice offered, but DD's school sports provider spent a lot of the time doing actual 'games' that developed sporting skills without being actual sports, like capture the flag and the like. That was good because it was a more level starting point, rather than those who do football out of school and playing on teams being so clearly advanced compared with others.

My DS hates football but he still has to play with the other boys during PE. His favourite sport isn't even taught in school.

I have never heard of a school doing only one sport in PE lessons, especially not when they are paying for coaches to come in.

The playing of football has been going on for a few years, she is now going into yr 6.

Thank you, yes I must now consider that it might be laziness on the schools part. It is a very small village school, so not typical of larger school with many children or diverse.

They do occasionally play other sports, but it is predominantly football.

DG: 'We played football again' long drawn out again and 'we didn't want to play because the boys don't kick the ball to us'

Yes I wish they would play Korf ball. I played it at my mixed comprehensive in the 70s. Is it still played at school, I often wonder.

I will talk to the school in September. I will encourage my DG to inspire her to appreciate that there are lots of sports that she can participate in. She is not a child that is just reluctant to play sport, she always wins the sprint at sports day (which she loves, for the variety of games and the competitiveness) and loves swimming, I take her weekly to the local leisure centre.

I have similar misgivings.
Whilst I am genuinely very pleased for the footballers who are clearly dedicated athletes who have worked very hard and deserve their success, I'm not convinced that it is the huge positive for women's sport in general that, if my Facebook newsfeed is anything to go by, a lot of people seem to think it is.
Of course women should be able to play any sport they wish, and it is great that previous bans have been overturned, but I do think that this new enthusiasm for women's football is more a reflection on the national passion for football than it is a real upswing in interest in women's sport. There have been some fantastic women's performances in other sports over the last few days and I don't really see them receiving any more attention than previously.
And there are downsides. I live in an area where only 2 sports are really considered worthy of attention - football and rugby league. It's always been tough for minority sports and people who want to play other things don't have the same facilities and tend to need to travel. But in the last couple of years it has got even worse. There has been a massive increase in girls and women playing football and rugby but a decrease in everything else. There are dozens of female football teams now, but the last remaining hockey club in the borough was recently forced to close as the (council owned) pitch was converted into a football pitch despite the fact that their are over 30 surfaces suitable for football within a 5 mile radius and no alternative for hockey. The local netball club is on it's knees, there's nobody much under 50 left at the badminton club, and the local bowls club is threatened by expansion of football facilities. Local businesses which used to sponsor other clubs have switched in droves to football.
Well that is because football is what people want, you might say. It's obviously a better sport and more people want to play. Which will have an element of truth in it I suppose, but it's also true that people play what is on offer. The "you can't be it if you don't see it" thing works both ways. And now football is the main sport that both boys and girls are seeing everywhere, it's what has the most money and the best facilities, it is bound to have the highest participation.
We have one of the best women's hockey teams in the world in this country, but any young girl who is inspired by them in our area is going to have her work cut out. She's unlikely to be inspired mind you as there's virtually no coverage in the media and hardly any schools play the sport round here (they do all offer football for both sexes), but if she is, she's looking at significant travel for training and matches which a lot of families just can't afford. The increasing popularity of women's football definitely does risk drawing participants away from other sports and potentially reducing choice.
I have mixed feelings. It is always good when barriers to female participation in any sport are broken down. More active kids is a good thing. More women in any sport is positive. But, it niggles at me that it seems to be viewed as more positive when women succeed in what are traditionally male sports and activities than if they achieve highly in longstanding unisex or traditionally female ones. There's still that underlying message that "boy stuff" is superior. If you look at the general attitude and language typically used to describe a female football player and say, a male ballet dancer, it's pretty obvious. That's not equality, it's misogyny.
We just need to be careful not to get swept away on the wave of euphoria over what is doubtless a great achievement. The issues around female participation in sports and other physical activities are not solved, by a long way.

I would challenged your school on this. Firstly these are sports coaches not specialists, pe is for teaching physical literacy not specific sports and a wide range of sports shouls be used.Mixed football isn’t girls football as they have to put up with crappy attitudes and boys who won’t pass to them.

Each primary school receives £16k minimum ring fenced monies for pe and school sport. Their should be a plan on their website of how they spend this. Spoiler alert: it’s shouldn’t be spent on external coaches who most likely cover ppe time.

DD2 was sports-mad when little, we took her to SportsCoach (it's the sports spin-off from Stagecoach) every Saturday morning for several years where they got to try everything from rounders to archery, and obstacle races to badminton. She never wanted to do any one sport to the exclusion of others, but went on to play for her secondary school in 9 different sports.

Variety is the best way to maintain interest at primary school age @Mums4all so you should definitely query this.

If she likes running, take her to junior parkrun. That's free and every Sunday. She might like it so much she wants to join an athletics club.

One of the issues is a lack of coaches - in lots of sports. Primary schools can only offer what they can afford to buy in, or what parents will pay extra for.

My son's school used to get football coaches to come in but you had to pay for it. He did swimming and athletics outside school. He played a bit of cricket at secondary school but was very poor provision.

State schools generally have poor provision because they have generalist PE teachers and not specialist coaches. But even if they could afford them, there aren't enough of them. Could you train as a football coach?

Sorry not a football coach as that's not what she wants to do!

Could you train as an athletics coach? The initial course is only two days.

When I was at school sport was strictly segregated- the boys played football/rugby/cross country in winter and cricket/tennis/athletics in summer; the girls played netball/cross country in winter and rounders/tennis/athletics in summer. It was only when I was going into Yr 11 when a new headteacher took over that we could do other things like yoga, dance, zumba, badminton, volleyball etc and groups became more mixed.

I hated netball and cross country but I had to play/run it at least twice a week every week for my entire secondary school career when I would have loved to play football but wasn't allowed.

You can't please every child all of the time but the school should be trying to ensure a variety of sports/activities are available to all of the children and to account for all abilities.

I think all primary and secondarys should offer a range of sports so people can see what they like and try new things. Only offering one isn't appropriate. Is it just one per term? If so then that's not so bad as it's only a few weeks.

I think football is the most popular sport in the UK so it's always going to be in PE somewhere as a lot of kids will want it. It just needs to be balanced with other sports. I am not keen on some sports being offered to girls and different ones to boys either.

In which case if this has been going on for years it is likely a combination of laziness on the schools part and a lack of availability of other types of coaches, rather than sudden national pride in women's football. (I am getting rather fed up of the number of men who have suddenly realised women can actually play football, there certainly wasn't this level until recently)

I live in a rural area and went to a very rural primary school and I know if the schools were to go out for sports coaches in this area probably about 90% of them would be football coaches.

You could speak to the school/encourage her parents to speak to the school. Rounders is an excellent mixed sex game, develops great hand to eye co-ordination, can be played with a mix of ages and doesn't really need a trained coach to play it. Plus because everyone gets a turn at batting, and their specific area to field, there is less of an issue with boys not passing to girls etc.

To be quite honest if the school are paying an outside firm to coach football and there is still an issue with boys not passing to girls that hasn't been stamped out I would also be questioning why the money is being spent when the coaches are clearly not that great at their jobs. A few times being sent off the pitch for not passing fairly would probably sort this kind of behaviour out during proper coaching sessions at least.

I do think that both primary and secondary schools should provide a wide range of sport. Some sport is / was traditionally played by boys or girls. We have moved forward and girls are more and more taking part in sport that was played boys.

I do not ever think we will see boys playing netball in this country which is a shame because it is a great game played at elite levels around the world.

I do not think that netball does not receive much national attention in this country because there is no desire to play it. My GD has never played netball. I did watch the last years Netball Superleague with her. Its not that I or the rest of the family are not able to expose her to a wide variety of sport, I would just love to see some of the enthusiasm about the woman's football game directed to at some sports that are traditionally played by girls.

This should not be a thing to be afraid of. At my mixed comprehensive girls played netball and hockey, boys played cricket and football, we all played rounders, korfball, atheletics, swimming, gymnastics, I could go on. This is not about boys should play this and girls should play that, it is just a shame that sport traditionally played by girls is being put on the back burner while sport traditionally played by boys is increasingly becoming the dominant port of call for young girls.

Well done to them, the win will obviously change the face of women's football globally and that can only be a good thing

Eh?

This was the 13th edition of the European Championship held since 1984. There have been 8 Women's World Cup Finals tournaments dating back to 1991.

I'm not sure why England winning a tournament would 'change the face of women's football globally' when other nations from around the world have been winning tournaments for decades.

OP football is cheaper to play than netball. You just need a ball and anything that can act as goal posts e.g. jumpers, cones, random bits of rubbish.

That's why there are so many footballers from developing countries. So it is unsurprising that state schools, particularly primary schools, that have limited funds chose a sport that is cheaper to get coaches in.

At my mixed comprehensive girls played netball and hockey, boys played cricket and football, we all played rounders, korfball, atheletics, swimming, gymnastics, I could go on.

Odd that you put hockey down as a girls sport. I played it in primary school in a mixed team and have met many adult hockey players of both sexes since then.

Likewise I've met female cricketers - who are British - and male netball players - though they were all brought up abroad.

Yup, and also an easy use of space if that is at a premium, which it usually is at state schools. 22 players (plus subs) as opposed to netball, basketball, tennis.

Lacrosse is another interesting one – primarily a girls' and women's sport in this country, but in the States it mainly played by men. I do think girls' and women's sport provision is better than it was, but still a few stereotypes exist, for sure.