Normalizing Girls In Football

Just a week ago, history was rewritten in English football forever as the England Lionesses took home the Women’s European Championship 2022. It was the first time ever the England National Team had ever won one of the major international football trophies since 1966, 56 years ago, despite the Men’s England team becoming runner’s up in 2020. Football came home.

I remember that midnight, I laid in bed, blanket over my head and my eyes glued to the opening first half of that long awaited match. The camera drifted to the big screen, where it had displayed the number of attendances amongst the crowds for the Euro final. Eighty-seven thousand, one hundred and ninety-two people had purchased tickets and took out time from their weekends to witness football coming home. The women did this, the women made it come home. When I checked the scores the next morning, I couldn’t help but feel 一丝丝的欣慰, an expression in Chinese, is the best way I could put it. But in some way, the Lionesses had inspired me.

I was introduced to football at a young age due to my dad’s sports-related businesses, and the more I watched footballers play, the more I was sucked in. Just like those who get pleasure in symphonies of musical notes, I was drawn to those who danced with a football and it ultimately ending up in the back post. However, growing up in a traditional Chinese household, football (soccer, specifically) has always been seen as a masculine sport; When I had expressed my interest to play football in my previous school, the overwhelming concerns from my relatives were that football is “really rough” and it’d “make my thighs really thick”. Even now, when I tell my friends that I chose football for my PE IGCSE, I still get comments like “Ew”, “Good luck with the boys”, or “That’s so cringe” (a type of slang, expressing unconformity). Although I know they’re joking, but why is it that a girl liking football and watches it every weekend is “weird”? How is this different from me shaming a boy for doing ballet? A seemingly so “girly” sport?

Though the doubts kept coming through, I continued to enjoy my weekends, with a can of soda in my left hand and a bag of chips in my right and after school free time, where I practice drills. I find it amusing how, 3 years ago, when I had been in an interview to my current school, the interviewer asked me if I had any questions for him, so I asked hesitantly and embarrassingly, “Are there any girls here, who play football?”. Wow. Way to build an impression, Winnie.

This has to change, the separation of girls doing “girly” sports, and boys doing “manly” sports, the truth is and proven by the England Lionesses, is that sports should be embraced and people should be respected, of their choices no matter of the sports they like. The more people I meet and discuss this topic with, the more I see; I’d recently been introduced that girls loving football is actually very common in the US and sports like volleyball (another sport known for girls) was actually very popular amongst the boys. It might seem very obvious for some, but this was actual news to me! I was stuck in a bubble where I didn’t know about the whole community behind these sports.

I don’t plan on leaving the football community anytime soon, and I’m sure I will enjoy my time with IGCSE football, but I am writing this blog in hopes of the traditional beliefs to slowly fade away, and welcome a new generation of thoughts where anyone can play any sports they’d like. I’m going to experience the football culture to the fullest and someday take on a leadership position in my school to spread the joy of football.

Thanks for reading and see you all in a bit.

-Winnie 07/08/2022