What about the women's world cup?!

[Clarew201]

Hi everyone, I read a couple of threads on the sports bit of Mumsnet and realised I was only reading about men's football. The women's world cup starts on 7th June and it's a really important year for supporting and promoting the game for women and girls. For those that don't know, a bit of history is that the women’s game was huge in the UK between the world wars (crowds of 55,000 with 14,000 waiting outside!), and large numbers of working class factory women playing in teams all over the country over many years - becoming household names and raising lots of money for returned soldiers and mining communities. Then the FA banned women from playing, for 50 years. When the FA finally lifted the ban in the 70s, women players faced horrendous treatment and the game has been struggling to come back ever since.

So it's brilliant that football is having a comeback. Here's where it's on in London londonist.com/london/sport/womens-world-cup-2019-football-where-to-watch-london-screenings

It was coming, well played Scotland

Emslie!

Sob! Still think that penalty was dodgy. What a second half from Scotland, though.

I was saying to dh as we watched this that as you can no longer watch men's football on normal telly, the BBC should buy the rights to show the Women's league for a year and see how popular it is.

They could start with changing the time and format of the Women's Football Show.

That's a brilliant idea, Menstruator. After all, last time women's football was big in this country (Dick Kerr Ladies and all) was when people watched it in large numbers because men's football wasn't happening - then they realised the women's game was worth watching in its own right. The same could happen here, with men's football having priced itself out of the market.

Great to watch and great to see women's sport.

We live in France and have semi final and final tickets. We are really looking forward to watching what we hope will be England, USA, France and whoever else makes the cut!! Fingers crossed!!

I really enjoyed the England v Scotland game. Harsh penalty but exciting match overall. Pleased with the win too!

I really wish I'd seen stuff like this as a young girl. The lads I played football with on my estate all talked about who they'd play for when they were older and it just never felt like playing as an adult was an option for me (even at an amateur level) as I just didn't really see women playing. I'm buzzing to think of the young lasses that'll be inspired by watching these brilliant and talented women.

Watched with my 2 sons who are following the world cup very enthusiastically. So great to see DS1 cheering and leaping out of his seat.

@NoseringGirl
So true. When I was young (not that long ago) girls were not even allowed to play football. I was good enough to play with the boys (age 10) but there was nowhere to take it as it really was not allowed at senior school.
Now I just look on in envy at what could have been.

A great match, really enjoyed it.

I must admit though that when they had the pundits talking about the match I had absolutely no idea who the American woman was so I had to google her.

I clearly don't know anything about women's football as it turns out she has two Olympic gold medals and was the goalkeeper for the US team when they won the 2015 world cup and came second in the 2011 world cup.

I love the Scotland manager. She's fierce!

Omg the penalty.
😢😢😢

Watching now on iPlayer - first ever football match. So some really basic questions -
What are caps?
Why was there a penalty - what had Scotland done wrong?

Who is Sue Smith (commentating)? I notice all the others are men? Are there many other female commentators?

A cap means playing for your country. (Players used to receive an actual cap they could wear)
The penalty was rewarded for hand ball, the player's arm was deemed to be in an unnatural position.
Sue Smith is an ex international football player

Here is some info re the commentating team
www.telegraph.co.uk/world-cup/2019/06/07/bbc-selection-womens-world-cup-cause-optimism-tournament-taken/

Happy to answer any more questions

Thanks Hiho.

DH came home from work very pleased with himself. His work always put the home nation games up on the big screens at work for the Men's World Cup. He has now persuaded them to do the same for the Women's

Round of applause for CountFosco's DH

I'm totally unsporty, only ever watch the final of any big game/match if England are in it. But wanted to watch this to support women and maybe to be able to counter any snide comments I might hear from men about it. It was really good, enjoyed it and even got a bit excited once or twice!

It did seem more 'polite' than the men's game: I didn't see any spitting or any players squaring up to each other. I did see concern for other players, regardless of the team, if they were hurt. I think I heard somewhere that the thing to do is to think of it as a totally different sport from the men's game and so judge it on its own merits.

Let's hope women's football gets big again.

There is a problem with the full-size (Men's) goals; 24 feet wide and 8 feet high.

England's former keeper Rachel Brown was 5ft 6in, and lost her place to Karen Bardsley (6ft) largely on inches alone.

And just to prove the claim that the girls don't cheat and always play nice is not necessarily true, here is Brown getting sent off, the innocent victim of the infamous Ramona Bachmann of Switzerland:

It is not that the women play nicer it is more that they don't play act when fouled.

The goal size debate is interesting, I guess a smaller goal would also mean a smaller pitch which could help the pace of the game. I will have to read up on that a bit.

I saw in one of those articles posted upthread the point was made that because women's football is so badly paid it really is about the purity and love of the game. These women have given up so much to get where they are, they won't piss it away with a penalty tantrum the way an overpaid indulged male superstar would.

Re goal size, Karen Bardsley makes a good point about equality in this article www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/05/29/reducing-size-womens-goals-would-not-help-fight-equality-says/

As does Hope Solo
www.joe.co.uk/sport/hope-solo-women-goal-size-234352

Those are interesting articles, HiHo. Smaller goals used to be floated as an idea back when I was playing Sunday league over a decade ago, as a way of stopping the 8-0, 10-0 score lines you used to get quite a lot. The idea was that the huge scores were down to the keepers' size.

But actually as the overall standard of women's football has gone up, and the pool of talent has got larger, so that within any given league teams are more evenly matched and the standard of defending is higher, those huge cricket score results seem to have dropped off, so I think Bardsley and Solo are right on this one.