Womens? Football

[beccahamlet]

I was going to come on here and say how bloody refereshing it is to have the tele dominated by women's football. Seems to redress the male bias. However I've noticed they've got banners sayining it's not women's football. Quite right - it's woman playing football. Just shows how indoctrinated I am!

Great for women's sport but if I were the manager of England's netball or hockey women's team I would be jealous of the coverage.

at a school level girls ' football seems to be as popular as netball, rounders, athletics etc. The coverage of the women's euros was a broadcaster choice but not necessarily market driven.

I 100% agree. But it's so much better than the usual male dominated coverage. And footie has always been so popular. Hopefully it's the frontrunner for other sports.

I agree women's and girls' sport needs to be promoted a lot more genrally.

My slight issue with football is that the women's team has benefited significantly with association with the iconic men's clubs e..g Man U, Chelsea etc. and so has a profile advantage compared to other sports.

I noticed with my daughters' football team that there are a lot of fathers on the side line which makes me think that there are few dads gently pushing their daughters in this direction. Not saying it is bad thing but I think women's football should be distinct.

One other thing I noticed is that there is a light middle class.side to girl's football compared to men's where it is really quite a working class player sport.

Skew not side

There are dads watching daughters play other sports too - one of my daughters played at county/England sub-division/England development level and there were loads of dads at matches. Parents tend to support their children.

We had a discussion about this last night.

DH commented that he had noticed that the news coverage was carefully avoiding calling it the "women's" football team and was just calling them the England team, which he thought was a good thing.

But surely there needs to be a way of distinguishing the women's team from the men's team?

Personally I think the England Women's team is fine - so long as it is also the England Men's team, not just the 'England team' (which assumes male by default).

There are obviously other sports too but I think they would be jealous of the profile women's football gets compared to say netball, rugby,cricket, etc. I bet our volleyball or netball squads would love to play in front of a packed Wembley!

my local concern with football is that girls apparently can only postcolonial in year 9 (boys year 7) so girls are flocking to the town (FA) football team. The FA and football team do have finances and support the girls' team to a good extent. However it seems that the girls all come from a select group of schools from the less socially deprived side of town and the girls are from wealthier backgrounds compared to the girls. I don't know if this feeds into the comments made about the womens' team currently have few players from ethnic minorities but there needs to a focus of widening participation socially as far as possible.

Should football be aimed at working class girls in much the same way as boys' football is primarily aimed at working class boys?

play school football. Not referring to postcolonial strangely enough.

Compared to boys .....

The FA's Trans inclusion policy allowing anyone under 19 to self ID in to girls football teams, changing rooms and showers will be off putting to some.

And as the number of Trans and NB children continue to rise, this is something the FA need to think about if they truly value and respect the female Womens game.

I'd not let my daughter play with the current policy in place. Allowing adult male cross dressers to supervise girls in changing rooms and showers is a massive safeguarding risk at best, but exactly what the FA has decided inclusive means.

One of the lioness player's is from my home town. When she first started football training she played mixed. The coach said she was better than the boy's. She's quite a local celebrity

Off topic, but in case you are interested, there is a thread on the Women's Euros board discussing the Championships.

It's called Women's Football - European Championships .

Thank you. Will have a look.

Interesting backgrounds of the players but does the press get too intrusive. A quick read of player profiles reveal that there are a number of gay players and those that aren't do not have children.

I think the papers really should concentrate on the sport because obviously pregnancy and maternity leave are important and sensitive topics in women's sport.

I think the football comes first and the press interest in the players comes second.

@pastaandpesto
Agree about calling the teams England Women and England Men.

@Somethingneedstochange Millie Bright?

Regarding the MC bias, my dd has been playing girls football for a few years, since a local team launched a girls team in her year group (year 6 at the time, now year 9). We’ve had to travel a long way for matches as few local girls teams. I was talking to the coach about why the local town seem to not have many girls teams, but cities do (even though local city smaller than local town) he said that the first wave of girls clubs were set up through university teams, so places with universities are more likely to have lots of girls clubs.

Having to drive up to an hour for a game on Saturday is also going to restrict participation I guess. FA have been encouraging more female participation though.

A friend of min daughter used to play mixed rugby. But was only allowed to play until she was 11. There's just noth enough girls in the area wanting to play for a girls only team.

My dd quite enjoyed rugby so I looked at local clubs and the nearest was 45 min drive and then I’d imagine a really long travel time for matches. It is a shame, maybe with womens rugby 7s in Commonwealth Games it will get more interest?

No Georgia Stanway

She is in the starting 11!

Join us here if you like
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens-euro-2022/4583467-womens-football-european-championships-starting-wed-67?page=17&reply=118914452

I see there's talk already of a Georgia Stanway statue replacing the emlyn Hughs one. Nobody liked him anyway.

I think we have to think about class when talking about football in a general sense.
Football is embedded in working class communities and provided working class boys role models and for the lucky few a life of riches and fame. 1% of make footballers attended university.

As opposed to hockey, rugby union, cricket, rowing etc. football as well as being phenomenally popular and wealthy as a sport draws its make participants very much from relatively deprived backgrounds.

You therefore face the question with the expansion of women's football should this be a sport for the working class girl or the middle class.girl?
With buying kit and associated fees, travel costs and ensuring free time it is a danger women's football becomes the preserve of the (relatively ) middle class and there will be barriers to working class girls that aren't necessarily there for working class boys.

For a lengthy professional career childbirth decisions are often delayed and again this maybe more characteristic of women from relatively wealthy backgrounds.

I know locally a lot of girls in my daughter's team could not be viewed as disadvantaged in a meaningful way and the costs (£30 per month fees for instance) are easily borne. Football seems to be another sporting option alongside hockey and netball and possibly doesn't yet have the cultural fascination with girls as it does boys.

Agreed!
And similarly with the clubs - Man U Women, Man U Men, etc. I think in the case of clubs it would meet resistance. I can understand that but I hope we would get there eventually.