YOU might have noticed that we’ve started carrying Liverpool Ladies’ match reports from Heather Carroll on the site. Good enough reason in my book to go to watch the team myself.
My knowledge of Liverpool Ladies prior to reading Heather’s reports comprised of this: I knew they won the league last season. I knew Natasha Dowie played for them.
That’s it.
That’s no slight on the team, their ability, or anything else. I’ve just found that with watching Liverpool, working, family and the rest, I’ve never had the time for anything else.
I’m not a footie snob. I’ve written on here before about how I used to watch Knowsley United regularly before their demise (and by the way, Liverpool Ladies used to be Knowsley United WFC #justsaying). I also made semi-regular trips to Prenton Park back in the day when Tranmere Rovers played on a Friday and had John Aldridge up front. I even gegged in when they got to Wembley to face Leicester in the League Cup final. In more recent times, I’ve dragged the kids to watch non-league Marine on Liverpool-free weekends.
In short, I’ll watch footie. Any footie. But women’s football?
It’s just never really come up as an option. Until Neil asked the very question this week, no one has ever said to me, “Fancy going to watch Liverpool Ladies?” The last time I watched 90 minutes of women’s football was on the telly during a World Cup. I couldn’t tell you the year but it’s safe to say it wasn’t recent.
I haven’t actively avoided it since, just never had cause to watch it. My abiding memory of that World Cup was that while the players were clearly technically competent, the skill level of the outfield players wasn’t matched by those between the sticks.
In other words, there were a lot of 20 yarders flying in that had me, who can’t save a pound, shouting: “Come on, ‘ey, you should have had that!”
Other than that, my preparation for last night — my first experience of women’s football LIVE — was to watch Jacqui Oatley’s Women’s Football Show on Monday on BBC2. It was good — and there was even a big ruck in one of the games, which I didn’t expect to see to be honest.
So, aside from that pre-programmed bias about the goalies, minimal telly watching and reading Heather’s reports, the trip to Widnes was breaking new ground.
Ah Widnes. I’ve got an issue with Widnes. Maybe it’s a grudge because the bouncer at the Richmond Square pub butted me for no good reason when I was 17 and at college there. The massive shithouse.
Or maybe it’s just that it doesn’t make very much sense to hold a football match there, particularly one you are trying to get people involved with.
Even with my limited knowledge of it, I know the women’s game has struggled for recognition and for media coverage. It was part-time, poorly paid and dedicated facilities were few and far between not so long ago. Now more players are turning pro and taking home a decent wage.
According to The Guardian in November, in 1993 there were just 80 registered girls’ teams; now there are 5,143, with 1,437 registered adult sides. They just need more supporters.
Widnes, for the uninitiated, is a rugby town 15 miles away from Liverpool. The Select Security Stadium (snappy) is the home of Widnes Vikings and has a capacity of 13,350. It also has an ‘i-pitch’ — artificial grass. Or a plazzy pitch, in traditional parlance.
For a stuck in his ways traditionalist grump like me, it’s not a selling point. It’s a bit out the way, requires a bit of planning to get to and once there the bounce of the ball looks a bit mad on that pitch. The floodlights aren’t great either.
Then there’s the massive empty ground. There are 421 here tonight — more than the aforementioned Marine get for most home games. But in terms of generating an atmosphere, a big rugby ground isn’t helping matters. A smaller ground, grass, in, or closer to, Liverpool — it would all help, particularly as there are people here singing songs, banging out You’ll Never Walk Alone and generally having a go.
Not having the drum though, mate. Football is no place for drums.
And so to the game. I’m not whacking out a match report, that’s Heather’s department. But I got into it. Bit of stick for the ref. Made up when they score. Lame attempt at needle with a badly-dressed Brummie. I’ll support anything in red that bears the name Liverpool FC to be fair. Except Mighty Red. That thing was here prancing around. No one was arsed. And it can still do one.
The last game I watched at this ground was a Liverpool ressies match maybe five years ago. Danny Wilson was playing and I thought he looked a player. He didn’t really get a sniff and he’s captain of Hearts now. On ‘spotting a player’ boasts that doesn’t rank highly, but I’m claiming some lost face back for telling Neil last night that Asisat Oshoala looked good in the highlights of an earlier game I’d watched.
Scored the first and set up the second, didn’t she?
I was also impressed with Satara Murray at the back, Rebecca Easton in front of the defence and Fara Williams in midfield. I’m sure they’re all made up.
Seriously though, it was a good game, the goalies made me shelve my concerns on that score and if there was one thing that was disappointing on the night it was the refereeing.
It looked clear that after Liverpool had taken the lead, a few of Birmingham Ladies’ number decided sticking one on their opponents was the way forward. A few naughty challenges followed, an elbow here, an OTT tackle there, an off-the-ball nudge for good measure — a situation you’ve seen many times. But there was no word to stop it before it started from the ref. No calling together of the captains. Instead it went on.
Birmingham’s Remi Allen in particular seemed on a mission to injure. Yellow cards were issued after one spicy clash that threatened to break into a mass brawl and shortly after Kate Longhurst left the action on a stretcher after another meaty challenge.
Slow handclap for the man in the middle.
As I say, I got into it.
Our ladies won 2-1, their first win of the season. They deserved it, too. Bit more nous. Bit more skill. Worked hard, battled. Showed their quality when it mattered.
I’d go again. It was free in with a LFC season ticket (£5 without). The next home game though isn’t for 24 days and it’s on a Sunday. At 6pm. In a rugby stadium. In Widnes.
Liverpool Ladies are a good side. They deserve a better stage, more frequent games and kick offs at a family friendly time. If we’re going to give it a chance it should give itself a chance first.
And women’s football? Worth a watch.
[rpfc_recent_posts_from_category meta=”true”]
Pic: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo.
Thanks for this, Gareth, appreciated.
I had a kid with my then girlfriend when I was 19. A son. We split up a year later. Between 8 and 15 my son played for a local side and I helped coach. Great times.
I got married 15 years ago, and we have two daughters together. Love my daughters to bits, but when the first was born 13 years ago I distinctly remember thinking that footie was off the agenda for the foreseeable, and when the second was born a couple of years later (knowing this would be our last child) I might even have let out an audible “fuck” in the birth room. Little did I know that both would grow up to be footballing fanatics.
My 13 year old is a ball-playing centre-half and captain of her local team who, together with one other team, dominate regionally. The nucleus of their Saturday side play together for the local school and won the national under-12 tile last year. This May, they are in the national final again as u-13s at the Madejski. In June, they are headed to Gothenburg for the Gothia Cup, the world’s largest youth tournament.
My 10 year old is not only the fastest girl in her year, she is the fastest pupil bar 2 boys. She is defensive midfielder (think an exceptionally quick Denis Wise who isn’t an unbearable prick). Complete opposite to her sister but just as talented. Captain as well.
My wife and I are buying a trophy cabinet because they’ve simply run out of space in their bedrooms.
Here’s the thing: the FA are actually doing something with girls’ football next season that makes sense. Neither of my girls are at the local Centre of Excellence even though both are better than many who are, and the reason is that they don’t want to give up the one thing that brought them into football in the first place: the chance to have a laugh and play with their friends. Currently, if you attend a CofE, you have to stop playing grass-roots football. You cannot play for your local side and the CofE. (I’ve seen this happen with boys football, too: young lads showing lots of promise who don’t want to give up playing with their mates to traipse around the country playing “serious” football with a bunch of strangers.)
So for next season – girls only – the FA are scrapping the Centres of Excellence and replacing them with ACCs (Advanced Coaching Centres). Elite girls will be given the chance to have UEFA-level coaching and play the odd representative game for the ACCs, but *will still be allowed to play grass-roots footie*. No need to give up playing with your mates if you want to develop and improve.
To my mind this makes perfect sense. Not only will more girls with the necessary skills be inclined to take up invitations to the ACCs, but the elite girls already at the Centres of Excellence will be reintegrated into the grass-roots system as they can once again play grass-roots football. So the standard at local level will improve, and teams like the one my girls pay for will have more than one or two matches every year where they are required to get out off second gear as all their league opponents will pick up elite local girls who were previously off-limits. And of course those girls will be improving all the time as they benefit from the coaching at the ACCs, and that improvement will rub off on team-mates at the grass-roots level, which in turn will raise the standard yet further.
Everyone’s a winner. As I say, when I heard the FA was moving forward with this I nearly fell off my chair. The next thought should be to do exactly the same with boys. Hopefully that will happen when the success of the girls’ scheme becomes apparent.
Anyway, point is, footie is footie. I love it in all forms, including the girls’ and women’s version. When my girls play I’m as nervous as I am when LFC play. The standard is improving all the time and the popularity of the girls’ game is going stratospheric.
If nothing else, all this has meant that I can put footie on the telly whenever I like and blame it on the girls. Sorted.
Not having the drum though, mate. Football is no place for drums.
Why not? Especially when not many people are there. All the more if it annoys the opposition.