After the Lionesses’ heroic performances in the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup I was overwhelmed with the intensity of the emotions gathering on socials and in the media.  Much of this was centred around the game-changing nature of the Lionesses’ legacy – inspiring participation & – at last – an unquestioned and unashamed celebration of women playing football.

Amidst this there’s also an undercurrent of people questioning why so much fuss is being made about this. So to repeat what should be obvious – I’ve heard so many women and girls recently whose story has been the same.  They have told of being desperate to play but without the clubs, the opportunity, the permission – or the spaces – to do so.

This is my personal memory of some of the spaces we were denied, or that put up with, or we claimed as our own:

My Junior school playground in the 1970s, where the rectangular tarmac area was taken over every lunch break by the boys for football.  I would be standing on the grass in the other bit, looking on. I remember distinctly, 50 years later, how watching this happen every day – without me – made me feel, as that 7 year old girl fanatical about football.

Then the local recreation ground on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, where I would cycle to watch men’s games when I was about 11 or 12. On the sidelines where I would bring my Trophy 5 Wembley football (orange plastic) and kick the ball around and do keepie-uppies despite the mud and my lack of football boots. Where I could watch an entire game – something not available on TV unless it was the Cup Final. Being often the only spectator, close to the rough & tumble and bad language, feeling linked to the game despite knowing nobody.

A netball court, where I was always being told off for kicking or juggling with the netballs, showing off my skills.  A moment when I kicked the ball back over my head when standing in the centre circle, and it arced up high then slotted neatly through the hoop.  It was that moment I thought to myself yes – I could play for England! (I eventually did, but for lacrosse, not football.)

Three years on, a random school or council pitch somewhere off the North Circular Road in London, when I had joined my first women’s team, and we had a game miles away from my home in Surrey.  All I can remember about this was the usual scariness of playing away, that the pitches were all on a pretty uneven slope, and some vague excitement because someone called ‘Hope Powell’ was playing in a match there the same day! Women’s football’s first superstar – did I see her score that stunning volley – or was that just my memory of someone describing it later that day when we all squeezed back into our car-share?

A darkened car park, quite a few years later in my twenties. I picked up a friend from her evening training session with newly-formed Bromley Borough.  The team were serious contenders in the women’s game at the time and had players like Sue Law & Brenda Sempari in the England national squad.  The muddy training pitch was broken up, and the session was lit only by their car headlamps left on as they parked in a row alongside. I think they called it the ‘pig field’.

A decrepit council changing room on Hackney Marshes where we played our home games. As the women played on Sunday afternoons, entering the concrete building with its ten or so changing rooms brought a reek of liniment, sweat, and much worse coming from the toilets (morning after the night before). Wading through the clumps of mud and grass brought in by the men’s boots earlier in the day, clearing the wooden benches of discarded tape, odd socks and water bottles.

Finally not a playing space, but a more positive memory of a moment in time that seemed a massive step to overcome my access to football.

I could never have justified asking for a pair of football boots, as I had no team to play for.

A bustling jumble sale in a community hall where I bought my first pair of football boots. I spotted the white moulded studs on a pair of the classic Adidas black and white ‘Beckenbauer’ style sticking out amidst a jumble of shoes. Amazingly my exact fit, and at pocket money prices. My little 12 yr old heart racing.  How alien they felt when I first laced them on and ran around the lawn by myself in my garden, but how I soon imagined myself on the pitch at Stamford Bridge, or Anfield, or any of the stadiums I saw on the TV highlights.

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Just keep remembering that it has taken so, so long for us to get to this point, and we’ve had to prove the point by winning the Euros and reaching the World Cup Final all within the last 12 months.

Women’s clubs have always had to negotiate, argue and justify use of  facilities ‘around’ the boys and mens training & games. But hopefully the conversations should be a bit easier these days…?