Celtic title win a moment of cultural significance Despite low match attendance, women’s football won’t be going anywhere soon
NOBODY gives a f**k about women’s football. Sometimes this is said with words, casually, but always – always – delivered with confident authority. Often it is said by action. Both amount to a dismissal, a wrinkle of the nose and a caustic banishment.
It is said in bars. It is said in work places. It is whispered in media circles. One suspects it is even said inside football boardrooms.
Maybe it’s true. Certainly, attendances in Scotland this season would suggest there isn’t concern any time soon that supporters will be battering down the doors to take their seat… whether that’s at this afternoon’s
Scottish Gas Women’s Scottish Cup final or whether it’s at a last minute league decider.
There were just over 3000 at Hampden last month for a Celtic v Rangers semi-final. Just over 7500 at Celtic Park last Sunday as Amy Gallacher, great-granddaughter of the great Patsy Gallacher, scored a 90th-minute winner to give Celtic their first SWPL title. That was fewer than half the number who turned up for the last day of the season last year. And, no Green Brigade, the self-confessed ultras, in attendance was notable.
The last SWNT game at Hampden in the middle of the Easter holidays failed to ignite any real interest; 3217 had ample room to spread out inside the national stadium.
So when there is scorn poured on the women’s game and where its place deserves to be in terms of coverage and interest it’s a tough argument to offer a different narrative that is grounded in hard evidence.
And yet, what was most notable from a recent conversation with Celtic captain Kelly Clark was not her inevitable delight at being the first woman to carry the SWPL title into the Parkhead boardroom. Rather it was her part in forging a path that did not exist until very recently.
The defender made the point that when she first arrived at Celtic just over a decade ago no-one knew there was a women’s team. They know now.
What makes that all the more interesting is a survey conducted of British football teams revealed Celtic were among those to attract a significant number of female supporters.
Among those inside Celtic Park last weekend or scrolling social media footage of Gallacher dinking the ball off the inside of the post and wheeling away in glorious sunshine to celebrate wildly, joyously, was a young girl drinking it in, absorbing it, believing it. Visualising it.
Is that not how all football love stories begin?
It might have been your daughter watching, believing. Or your niece. A granddaughter. A cousin, a sister.
There remain numerous day-to-day instances where women still find themselves fighting for their place and for basic respect within their industry. But what we take for granted – votes, matriculation cards, access to industry – was unimagin-able for women even a generation ago.
Footage from a television archive in a primary school archive from 1980 – 1980! – solicited opinion from children on whether women should be allowed to be police officers. The vibe was overwhelmingly not in favour.
So when Clark held aloft the trophy in front of Celtic Park and the fireworks went off and the confetti fell, it was a moment of cultural significance. Not only because it was a first title and the first time a Scottish club has held men’s and women’s titles simultaneously. But everything to do with offering a visibility that is necessary but still recent.
We can only speculate to why Scotland lags depressingly behind in the numbers that the game attracts south of the border and across Europe. All have had the same machismo baggage to dismantle along the way yet seem to have had greater success in doing so.
Maybe nobody gives a f **k about women’s football.
But it won’t be going anywhere soon. Not if your daughters have anything to do with it.
NEWS that Jeremy Vine was successful in his legal defamation case against Joey Barton will have been well received in certain quarters this weekend. The former footballer was found guilty by a High Court judge after remarks posted on social media.
Barton has had a sustained season of criticising anyone who has dared to see the world through a different lens. Those who have been in the firing leg in particular have been those involved in women’s football and females working within football punditry.
Eni Aluko suggested that the abuse she was on the receiving end from Barton made her wary to leave home.
Whatever your opinion on Aluko, it’s a scandalous personal attack.
Friday’s ruling now sets an important marker for all those who feel emboldened by social media that their actions are not above the law.
SCOTLAND’S women take on Israel on Friday night at Hampden in a European Championship qualification match with the game now being moved to behind closed doors.
Deemed a security risk, the SFA had originally made the call to offer tickets only to those within the Scotland Supporters Club or those who had been to at least one of the last four games.
Last week the call was made that no fans will be allowed inside the ground.
The suspicion is that there will be a significant amount of protests outside Hampden in the build-up to the game and pro-Palestinian supporters offer a voice to those who are caught up in events in Gaza.