The girls who play for Stockport Dynamoes under-12s are regulars at Manchester City or United games. But they’re less accustomed to seeing women play their sport – which is why their coach, Sara Sanders, believes England hosting the Euros has been a gamechanger.
“It’s the first time they’ve been able to go somewhere locally to see England play, and that visibility and accessibility – seeing the game played in the same way the men’s game is played – is massive for them,” she said.
Sanders said her girls now know all the England players’ names, positions and attributes for the first time, and when they watch them they comment: “I did that, I can do that.” She said: “Small things like that tell you that they feel represented. The sport involves them so much more when it’s women playing.”
Since the Euros started, Sanders said, she has seen a surge in interest from girls looking to join the team and existing players considering whether they might be able to pursue a professional career – or even just gaining the confidence to ask to play against boys.
The Stockport Dynamoes are one of several clubs around England that told the Guardian that the Lionesses’ success on home turf had inspired existing and future female football players alike.
This interest is reflected in the enormous viewing figures that matches have been pulling in, with Wednesday night’s triumph in the quarter-final against Spain – previously tipped as possible winners of the tournament – landing 7.6 million, more than double the level for the group stages, and equalling the numbers for the quarter-final in the 2019 World Cup. The BBC said viewing figures prior to that had been “nowhere near what we’re seeing today”.
Munaf Abrham, the chair of Leytonstone FC, said his team had more than doubled from 50 to 110 since the Euros began, with 10-15 new signups over the past week. “The Euros have been so influential,” he said.
Lisa Parfitt, the director of the Women in Football charity and a coach at Milford Pumas youth club in Surrey, said her team received so much interest after the 2019 World Cup that it had got on the front foot by organising summer taster sessions to keep girls engaged until the new season starts.
For existing players, said Yasmin Hussain, who coaches girls aged six to 16 at Frenford & MSA in east London, the prominent coverage of the Euros on the BBC gives them “something to aspire to”. This is especially important for her team, which recruits mostly from the Muslim and south Asian community, and she has been heartened to see her players asking about trials for West Ham’s development teams.
“Now they know what’s possible, it won’t take long before someone Muslim is in England’s women’s football team. That’s not something nobody should be able to achieve. This has given them new ambition, something to look forward to and a possible dream,” she said.
Hussain added that it had previously been discouraging that women’s football “used to get a lot of stick. But if you watched yesterday there were skills everywhere.”
All the coaches noted that their boys’ teams had been engaged with the Lionesses’ performance. “They very much see it as England playing football,” said Parfitt, adding that the matches also offered a more “family festival” atmosphere for people to enjoy.
However, Sanders worried that some of the negativity from men on social media – including goals being attributed to goalkeepers’ mistakes rather than to strikers’ skill – could discourage her players once they hit 13, a common age for girls to drop out of football. This was why it was so important that the positive coverage on TV and in the newspapers continues, she added.
Staying the course matters, because there are few sports that combine the benefits to health and wellbeing of fitness and team-building as effectively and accessibly as football.
“There are so many elements they can see their improvement in – one girl will work on passing, another moving with the ball,” said Sanders. “It’s that encouragement of each other. Every milestone they achieve is huge, it teaches resilience and perseverance when there’s something that’s particularly tricky.”
