Womens Football- Personal Experience

Women’s football is bursting with raw, energetic talent as recent success in worldwide competitions and qualification for the Euro’s of 2009 clearly highlights. MELISSA LEWIS reveals her love for the beautiful game and how nothing could deter her from following her dream of playing the sport she loved…
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Most girls find that they grow out of sport.
Shopping, working and boys often become intervening factors when it comes to getting muddy past the age of 14.

In truth, I nearly succumbed to these temptations too, with cash and clothes more vital to my teen angst than studs and shots. But, on reflection, turning my back on football would have been the biggest mistake I would have ever made.

My first football experience involved travelling ten minutes down the road, buzzing with excitement to see Woking Football Club take on Chelsea FC in an insignificant pre-season friendly.

Being football mad from the age of nine - my parents will probably dispute it was in fact much earlier - it finally gave me the opportunity to slip on my vintage Ruud Gullit plastered t-shirt and head to the ground with dad.

The fact I was watching the reserves just didn’t matter – and neither did the result.
For the record, Chelsea won- 2-1 with a late Frank Sinclair header gratefully cheered by the away fans. But more importantly, it was the smile I left the ground with that day which was far more significant.

A tide of emotions flooded my senses that life-defining Thursday evening – and that buzz has never been matched by any activity other than football.
Playing for local teams, endless penalty competitions and a few sports awards later, I’m still that proud football lover.

Appointed team captain of the Southampton Solent University squad for this year and a regular in the starting line-up for high flying unbeaten Eastleigh Ladies, football is still very much an integral part of my life.
And I’m by no means alone.

Local Hampshire Leagues are full of technical and talented female footballers and the same can certainly be said for university football. Southampton University reached the National Finals held in Sheffield last season and have continued their success with five consecutive victories in the British Universities and Sports Colleges (BUSA) league this term. Solent are not far behind, losing only one of their five games and convincingly overcoming rival opposition in the majority of their past fixtures.

But it’s more than just results. Both socially and competitively, the atmosphere surrounding women’s football is one which struggles to be matched elsewhere.
However nationally, women’s football has yet to fully captivate the sporting media which instead focuses (obsessively in my opinion) on the big spending – and male - Premier league.

Still, our passion refuses to be extinguished, nor our enthusiasm dulled.

Inspiration can be found with teams like Arsenal Ladies who, although still only semi-pro, have achieved the sort of success that Fergie and Scolari can only dream of. Forget winning ‘the Treble’ of trophies in the men’s game – the Arsenal Ladies scooped The Quadruple!

Crowned queens of both domestic and European competitions, they also played before a record attendance of 25,000 in the FA Cup Final. Meanwhile their players helped England reach the World Cup Quarter Finals in 2007 and recently qualify for the 2009 European Championships.

Southampton Ladies have a great record too, winners of the Women’s FA Cup on eight occasions throughout their history. The inspirational Sue Lopez MBE was a key member of their squad for an astonishing twenty years and pivotal to their decades of success. Icons such as herself and Kelly Smith, who has been shortlisted for the 2008 FIFA World Player Award, are reasons why I, alongside many have such love for the game.

Our sport is going from strength to strength.

Since the Football Association took control of the game in 1993, women’s participation has risen from just under 11,000 to the heady heights of over 215,000. Younger generations are being encouraged to take the sport more seriously and urged to resist abandoning the sport when the adolescent years kick in.

And let’s be clear about one thing - femininity need not be lost.
I cried in bed when Southgate missed that Euro ‘96 penalty and even more so, over ten years later, when John Terry slipped in Moscow. And I confess, without a shadow of a doubt, that more tears will be wasted over the beautiful game in the future.
I don’t remember what happened to that Ruud Gullit shirt, but will never forget how much football and my first fixture has made me the person, footballer and female that I am.

FOOTIE FACTS
1. The first women's football match recorded was held in 1895 between a northern and a southern team. The north won the game 7-1.
2. The biggest ever crowd recorded for a women's game in England took place on Boxing Day 1920 when 53,000 people watched Dick Kerr's Ladies beat their closest rivals, St Helen's Ladies, 4-0.
3. The Football Association banned women from playing on Football League grounds in 1921. Because the game was deemed " unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged."
4. In 1999, the USA hosts the Women's World Cup which sees sell out stadia and over 90,000 at the final. Members of the victorious US team become household names.
5. The first Women's National League was formed in 1991.
6. In 1989, there were 263 women's clubs and around 7,000 registered players but by the late 1990s, it’s estimated up to 216,000 women played football in the UK and 150,000 are affiliated with the FA.
7. More women play football in Europe than in the Uk. In Germany, for example, there are half a million female players. There are around 8m registered players in the USA.