Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Lionesses showed men how to bring it home... and women everywhere roared
Do you know what’s he said? “Probably better.”
He thought the play was more end to end with brilliant passes.
But what wasn’t in doubt was the sheer determination that took the team to the final.
I wonder how many times these Lionesses – and their predecessors – have had to listen to men ‘joking’ about remembering to take their handbags on the pitch.
Or telling them they have another place and it’s making tea at home. Or that women can’t play football.
I can remember comments just like these – now seen as outrageously sexist – as being commonplace just a decade or two ago.
Not everyone had these views of course but those who did have been proved categorically wrong.
And any wee girl thinking her choices lie between gymnastics, horse-riding, netball or hockey now knows it is not only possible to play football, but it’s possible to compete and win at the highest level.
Maybe all the other sports we’ve traditionally left to the men – from rugby to weightlifting – will also come into play.
My eldest boy has started playing for a local team. One of the best players is a girl – and why wouldn’t she be?
My eldest two are football daft and I loved that they felt invested in this women’s final.
It hasn’t been an option for generations of boys before them. The TV coverage hasn’t been there, nor the brilliance of play we now see.
I want them to think nothing of watching women’s sport – to see it as the norm. As the lone woman in our house, I am partly responsible for how they view gender and everything that goes with it.
I just want them to get on with it – not to think there’s a tricky divide to navigate, but that women are brilliant and equal.
Because here’s the thing. They always have been.
Just ask the jute workers of Dundee – like my gran who lost a finger in the mills – who ran to the aid of countless others with devastating machinery injuries.
Or the women who carried the country on as normal when the men went to war, doing all the jobs no one had ever thought them capable of. Women have been slogging it out for generations and the fact it’s not been front page news makes it all the more courageous.
I tell my boys all the time that they can be anything they want to be – but there’s a caveat. They’ve got to try hard enough.
And that’s the beauty of England’s win. They’ve shown that grit pays and that dreams can come true when you don’t give up. It’s a lesson for our children and for ourselves too.
And since the joke is on the sexist critics of women’s football, here’s another one.
England have been banging on about bringing it home again since 1966 and finally, when they do get some decent silverware, it’s the women who got the job done.
Forgive me, I never thought I’d get the chance to say that.
Well done to the Lionesses. You’ve made women everywhere roar.