A different game

IT WAS a brilliant victory for the Lionesses, but to draw comparisons with 1966 is going too far. They are two different ball games.

Much is made about the fact that women get paid far, far less than their male counterparts, but the women’s game generates nowhere near as much as the men’s. After their victory, endorsements and sponsorship will be on offer to the women.

Before 1966, english football was in disarray. We did not play in the early World Cups and for a while post-war were not members of FIFA. The game had moved on, as the Magical Magyars taught us, and by the mid-1950s, crowds were dwindling. Grounds were in a state of disrepair and the Munich air crash robbed england of some young talent.

Alf Ramsey’s prediction that ‘ We will win the World Cup’ was hardly taken seriously. But somehow he moulded a team together and, slowly, the nation got behind them.

The england team became household names. With respect to the Lionesses, will we remember their names this time next year?

If the woman’s game is to grow, the fans have to turn up, week in, week out. ellen White is being talked about as soon being england’s

leading goalscorer. An achievement in its own right, but not on the same level as Wayne Rooney’s record.

We should enjoy what the women have done and leave it at that. DAVID PATRICK MOORE,

Beckenham, Gtr London.