Singer Kate Nash and artist Charlotte Colbert have teamed up to support the women’s team of Lewes FC, a football club making waves for “ground-breaking work on gender equality”.
Nash, who wrote Foundations, the song that the Lionesses said they listened to on the bus before Women’s World Cup 2023, has written a bouncy new anthem titled Eyeconic. The song and its music video are released today, as revealed exclusively in the Evening Standard.
Colbert has designed t-shirts that feature her signature cartoon eyes, and which have See Us As We Are – the name of Lewes FC’s most recent campaign – written on the backs. “I’m so happy to be able to support Lewes FC – a club that is community-owned. It’s really inspiring,” said Colbert.
“My work is often about utopias and narratives, and how we can envisage positive alternative futures for ourselves. Lewes FC, with its ground-breaking work on gender equality for players, its catering to different demographics at the home ground, and its human-centred footballing strategy, is actively enacting the changes it advocates for.”
Colbert and Nash are releasing a music video as part of their collaboration: “Eye-conic, she could be anything,” sings Nash in the upbeat song. “She’s got it, but she’s on my team!”
In the music video Lewes FC women’s team wear the Colbert-desinged football shirts, singing and playing in The Dripping Pan, Lewes’ brilliantly named stadium. Some shots are slowed down and collaged with cartoons; in others, the players are singing Nash’s song to the camera.
When speaking to the Standard in June, Nash said: “People still don't love successful women. I don’t think you can talk about women in the same way now in the media, but they still throw you to the wolves.”
Over the past several years, Lewes FC has started to make headlines with its values-driven approach to the game. In 2017 it gained attention for funding both its men’s and women’s teams equally – both teams are given the same amounts for training and for spending on players.
And Lewes FC has been focused on creating a unique, women-focused development and training programme for its women’s team: “Women’s football culture and women players are not the same as men’s,” said Karen Dobres, one of the club’s project leads, to The Guardian.
“We don’t treat our women players like little men. Women have different physiology, psychology, needs, values, matchday experiences and these should be nurtured and allowed to develop. Not squeezed into standard default male norms.”
In practice, this means everything from tracking menstrual cycles to hiring a team of specialists who are authorities on female athletics and women’s football.
Now its newest campaign, See Us As We Are, which launched in July, is further pushing its message, asking that football “recognise the differences in culture and values between men’s and women’s football, and to not just try to squeeze women’s football into the broken mould of the men’s game.”
This means specialised physiological and nutrition support, period tracking and equal priority to resources, says the campaign. More on the campaign can be found here, while Colbert’s merch can be bought here.
The not-for-profit club, which previously listed comedian, writer and director Patrick Marber among its owners, raises money through ticket sales, sponsors and advertisers.
It also runs an ownership scheme, where for £50 a member gets a share and a vote. As part of its latest campaign, Lewes FC is trying to double its club owners from 2,500 to 5,000.
