It seems like only yesterday that women’s football was viewed as a niche hobby on a par with morris dancing and openly mocked.
Days when male ex-players argued it was an insult to call the women’s game “football” because their legs were too weak to kick the ball hard enough and they pulled out of tackles in case they snapped a fingernail. In 2004, FIFA President Sepp Blatter suggested the women’s game might be more popular if the “pretty ladies” wore tighter shorts to promote “a more female aesthetic”. And in 2011, racing driver Nico Rosberg claimed that being a spectator at the women’s World Cup was like watching the Paralympics.
So, let’s call it progress that women have at least managed to elevate their game from being vilified to patronised. And boy are they still patronised. Over the past two weeks broadcaster Adam Boulton asked if the World Cup was “just a kind of random kickaround,” and Australian TV commentator David Basheer claimed a tackle by Matilda Katrina Gorry proved that “certainly motherhood hasn’t blunted her competitive instincts”.
Free speech champion Toby Young wrote a Spectator article entitled “Am I allowed to make fun of women’s football” in which he argued that male critics run the risk of being labelled misogynists. And Donald Trump, a long-time loather of the women’s game and its support for LGBTQ+ issues, celebrated the US being knocked out by tweeting “WOKE EQUALS FAILURE”.
You see, in this culture wars era there lingers a suspicion that any man claiming to enjoy the women’s game is a virtue-signalling snowflake who’s telling patronising porkies. Well, this male fan of almost 60 years signals no virtue by admitting how much he has enjoyed the England team’s journey at this World Cup. How, like the finest sides in football history, they have risen above injuries and suspension to star players, dug deep when they weren’t playing well, shown character in the most hostile of cauldrons, defended like beasts, stayed calm in key moments and exhibited ice in their veins in front of the goal.
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It would be impossible to patronise Sarina Wiegman ’s team for their ultra-professional victory over a fired-up Australia, or dismiss the move that produced the winning goal as anything but a work of beauty, created by the highest of technical skills. Had that goal been scored by Harry Kane, pundits would still be drooling over it. In terms of footballing evolution it’s actually a positive sign that in Australia the Lionesses have wasted time, committed cynical fouls, been overly physical and had a player sent off for stamping on an opponent.
Because it means they’re getting closer to the professional men’s game. And, as much as I’m sure the women welcome praise for not spitting, diving and arguing as badly as Premier League prima donnas, that’s the standard they want to be judged on. It shows that they are moving on from being patronised by men to gaining parity with them.
Women’s football will know it has truly arrived when England lose a big World Cup game on penalties and the players who miss become national scapegoats. But I can’t see that happening just yet. Right now the Lionesses should settle for becoming the first senior English team to win a World Cup on foreign soil. Then patronise the men for not yet having the balls to match that feat.
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