The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
What a joy to watch United’s women as they blaze a trail for female game
WThe players had to do a whip-round to pay for the referees
ednesday night was a joy. Let me share it with you. The women’s team of Dundee United have just won their league. They only formed a few years ago and they’ll be competing in the top league from next season.
And, on Wednesday, they played their penultimate league match against St Johnstone at Tannadice – and were able to lift the league trophy in front of the home support.
Much of this is remarkable, recordbreaking, exceptional.
And let’s start with the folk in the stands. In the pie queue, there were far more women than men.
The usual background hum you get in the concourse is of older guys murmuring greetings to pals and slurping at Bovril.
This week it was laughing, skelloching bairns. Many were there for the first time.
Lotte and Lucia had never been to Tannadice before.
Lucia, who is seven this year, had a tangerine-and-black scarf birled about her neck and was shyly chatting to me at Lotte’s knee.
“Do you play football?” I asked Lucia. “Yeah. I play in goal, just for my school team,” she said. “But I support United.” I think that’s special.
The majority of United supporters have their early memories at Tannadice.
Some are jammy: they mind getting tane to a Roma, or a Monchengladbach.
Maist o us traipse up to a Kilmarnock or whatever.
Wee Lucia’s first game is a milestone: Dundee United women’s team’s first-ever match at Tannadice.
And she was part of a record-breaking crowd for women’s football in Dundee – 726 people came out to watch it.
It’s a milestone. But it is just that, a marker on the path along which we have a long way to travel yet.
On BBC the iPlayer just now is an excellent documentary about Julie Fleeting, a pioneering player.
She’s no old at all.
Yet in her early career she had to play with boys’ teams as there were no organised girls’ squads.
She represented her nation. But the players wore jersies that didnae even fit: they were hand-me-downs fae men’s teams.
The players had to do a whip-round to pay for the referees for each game.
And the games themselves could be brutally one-sided. Julie scored the winner when Scotland horsed Lithuania 17-0, for example. The progress since then has been tremendous. The United players are welldrilled, properly kitted out, confident in their game.
But even for them things are not as good as they could be.
Still their strips have no names on the back. Still media coverage of their matches is slight. And still there was 10% of the crowd you might expect at a similar men’s fixture. We’re not there yet.
The fact is, the women’s team is run as a charity. Their stated purpose to attract funding is not to win leagues, but to provide role models for the next generation. On Wednesday night, they did that. I spoke to Molly, Katie, Abigael and Zoe. They all play for United’s girls Under-18s, they’re fae Dundee and have season tickets for the men’s team.
“I think it’d be cool for us to play here one day,” one said. “It’d be cool to get high in the league [next season] and maybe fill two parts of the stadium.”
And what did they make of the role-modelling?
“The younger girls around us were really excited when we scored.
“It’s good that they get to see older women achieving things in Dundee.”
Her pal added. “More girls that come and watch, more will play football.”
In the crowd were a trio of Perth fans, Julie, Niamh and Eilidh. Two of them play for Jeanfield Swifts, the famous Perth girls’ team.
“I think it’s really good that all the fans are here for a second division women’s game,” one told me.
And do they think they’ll come and play at Tannadice in the future?
“Of course. A hunner per cent.”
The game was a great watch. St Johnstone turned up ready for the occasion and scored early.
United fought back, battered at their backline and scored two goals to take the lead.
On 80 minutes, St Johnstone’s striker tore through and scored a really good goal, tying the game at 2-2.
The women in tangerine seemed set to prove that they are every bit the equals of their male counterparts by blowing it on the big occasion.
But with the clock on 89 minutes and 20 seconds, United scored a winner.
A beautiful curling ball direct fae a corner found the back of the net. The crowd went wild. Loads of young lassies waved flags. All 700-odd of us stood and whooped and applauded.
The trophy presentation came next, with all of us staying in the stands to cheer as the players got their medals.
Douglas’ ain Georgie Robb had her pals there to cheer her on.
Lines of young women and girls queued up to get pictures with the league trophy and their favourite players.
This is not the high-water mark of the women’s game in Dundee.
But Wednesday gives us all reasons to get excited and to start looking forward to our city’s first women’s team in the top-flight of football next season.