Even in the age of streaming services and short-form video stars, a fundamental truth endures: if it’s important, it’ll be on television. And for a long time, women’s sport was nowhere to be found.
There were notably rare exceptions, such as tennis and athletics. And so growing up, I was in awe of Serena Williams’s serve, Justine Henin’s backhand and Martina Hingis’s evil twin vibe. And every four years I’d be hooked by athletics, from Cathy Freeman’s 400m in Sydney to Kelly Holmes’s 800m/1500m double in Athens.
The point is that, when it was on, it wasn’t weird to be watching world-class women’s sport. Wimbledon meant Steffi Graf and Pete Sampras, the Olympics Paula Radcliffe and Michael Johnson. But football? Television told me that only mattered when men played it.
Women’s football was not so much an afterthought as virtually invisible. Something you watched for 30 seconds part way through an Arsenal end of season review on VCR. Even though the ladies side won the league every year while the men scraped into fourth place.
And so like many people, I came to women’s football later in life – after my expectations of what was and wasn’t normal had been set. It was like learning a second language in adulthood rather than as a more malleable child. More effort, but also greater pleasure.
That the Lionesses have morphed into the most successful England team in history, regardless of Sunday’s result, hasn’t hurt either. Others seem to agree, with a peak audience of 7.3 million for Wednesday’s mid-afternoon semi-final.
As a middle-aged millennial, it is still sometimes strange to see women’s football splashed across the front and back pages. Not because it doesn’t belong there – this is a world cup final for goodness sake – but because it simply wasn’t what I grew up with. But for young people today, it is unremarkable in the most marvellous way.
I don’t think English footballers winning or making the final of major tournaments will ever feel normal. A reversion to the mean will come and soon enough we’ll retreat into our much-cherished ‘nearly’ status. But women’s football being in our faces, across our papers and on our screens? That’s the new normal.
In the comment pages, Tracey Emin says we don’t all have to be mothers, live the same or be the same. Paul Flynn asks have you noticed? The Lionesses have smashed football’s rainbow ceiling. While Dan Kilpatrick says the team has shown remarkable spirit, but they can’t afford to flinch now.
And finally, from Rachel Weisz to Pedro Pascal, your essential guide to the summer of ‘daddy’. I’ll leave it to El Hunt to explain.
Have a lovely weekend.
