‘Women’s football revival culminates tonight in Cardiff’
THE revival of women’s football in Britain, a sport once “squashed out of existence”, will culminate in tonight’s Champions League final, a Cardiff-born historian has said.
Ruth Goodman said the women’s final – between Lyon and Paris St Germain – being played in Wales is a “hugely significant” moment in the history of the sport in this country, which is once again close to its peak popularity.
Ms Goodman, who has her own unique link to the city’s football history with her grandmother having served as Cardiff City’s tea lady for decades, will present an item on the sport on The One Show on BBC One tomorrow night.
The women’s match takes place at Cardiff City Stadium, with Juventus v Real Madrid at the National Stadium of Wales two days’ later – but the two games have sometimes taken place in separate countries.
Ms Goodman said it’s brilliant to now see women’s football finally getting the recognition it deserves in the UK.
Speaking about the two showpiece games, she said: “It’s been given more prominence by Uefa and that’s the really big change.
“That bodes well for the future of the sport. That support and recognition is now happening and there’s a great deal more positivity about women in sport.”
Ahead of tonight’s women’s clash, Ms Goodman feels equality in the sport is “closer than ever”.
She explained: “There’s plenty of evidence of female footballers in the 1890s and 1890s.
“But slightly later on in the First World War is when women’s football really came to the fore. Everybody started supporting and being interested in these teams that formed while men were sent away to the front line.
“They were playing good football. Then after the war, when the men returned from service, because the girls had been practicing more than them, they had higher skill levels, and were actually pulling in larger crowds than the men’s games.
“But men were not happy because they wanted it for themselves, and so proceeded to squash the women’s game out of existence.”
Women’s matches were sometimes pulling in more than crowds of 50,000, and so the Football Association at the time effectively banned the game, saying it was “quite unsuitable for females”.
But Ms Goodman says the women’s game has since seen a huge revival in popularity, with participation numbers up and TV viewing figures higher than ever, which is expected to culminate in tonight’s match.
She said: “It’s wonderful to see that in a city I grew up in and gives me a really nice feeling.”
Although Ms Goodman admits she doesn’t know a great deal about modern football, her family has a fascinating link to the sport in Wales.
That’s because her grandmother, Lillian, was the tea lady at Cardiff City for more than 40 years until leaving the job in 2000.
“Of all my family, the person most interested in football was my nan. But she kept it separate and enjoyed it without making a fuss about it for a long period of her life.
“She really kept football to herself and although I grew up a stone’s throw from it, nobody else from the family was allowed inside that stadium with her. I’ve got such fond memories of my gran and I’m excited to watch the Champions League final to see what it was that gave her so much enjoyment.
“She died when she was in her 90s, but I would have loved to have seen her enjoy it with me.”
It comes before Ms Goodman presents a piece for a special One Show to be broadcast live from the Welsh capital tomorrow at 7pm with Alex Jones, Patrick Kielty and Jason Mohammad.
Follow the women’s final live on WalesOnline.co.uk