Take us seriously, watch us play

“The first few minutes were sufficient to show that football by women, if the British Ladies be taken as a criterion, is totally out of the question. A footballer requires speed, judgement, skill, and pluck. Not one of these four qualities was apparent on Saturday. For the most part, the ladies wandered aimlessly over the field at an ungraceful jog-trot."

This is a quote taken from the Daily Sketch in March 1895, following the first recorded women’s soccer game at Crouch End in North London. It's sentiments are just as true today as they were 100 years ago.

Having spent most of my life in the UK I have long held the notion that the USA is the promised land when it comes to gender equality in women's sport. Not only are there professional women's sports teams, college scholarships for female athletes and huge grassroots participation but all this activity is also all backed up by law, through the oft cited Title IX. Undeniably this all makes for a healthy competitive cauldron across a range of sports but having lived here for just over 18 months now I can see that the equality is little more than skin deep and quite possibly the edifice created by Title IX is starting to crumble.

Abbott Tech High School in Danbury CT don't offer girls soccer, but because of Title IX have to allow girls to play in their boys programme if they are deemed to be talented enough. Here's Alisan Sartori (In white) playing for the Varsity team during their State play offs last November. NB. She played for the full game and was a key member of the back line

Women athletes here face just the same problems as their counterparts back in Britain, it's just that they are just dressed up in a slightly different way. Sport plays a massive part in the day to day life of many Americans but the media coverage is dominated by men and male values and unfortunately for them most women's sport just isn't sexy enough to merit any sustained or long term publicity.

All over the country women are dedicating themselves to their chosen sport with little or no attention and even less respect. The 10,00 hour rule for the development of elite performers is just as true for a female athlete as it is a male athlete. It's a sobering thought that most female athletes can only find the time to train by juggling work and family commitments........ don't get me started on the prejudice she has also to face in the light of this juggling act.

I've recently undertaken to photograph the inaugural season of the Northeastern Nitro women's football team based in Danbury CT. This is the real deal and I have nothing but respect for the women who have taken on the commitment to play a sport that is so uniquely American. The players come from a wide geographical area that takes in the surrounding states as well as Connecticut. In the week they have to train alone, or in small groups, the only time the whole squad can get together is at the weekend. Over the course of the 2 days community events, chalk and talks as well as training all have to be fitted in so is it any wonder that one of their training sessions starts on Sunday morning at 6.00am. Don't try to tell me that these women aren't dedicated to their sport.

The thing is this is a story that is undoubtedly shared by women all over the world so the next time you watch that female basketball, soccer, hockey, football team etc just remember what they had to go through just to be able to step out onto that field. All they ask is that you take them seriously and show a little respect.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, please check out this link ... In the Game..... a project by Chicago based film maker Maria Finitzo ... It has to be made

It's football, but not as we know it

Football, american style

After a lifetime playing, coaching and watching football in the UK I moved to live in the football free-zone that is the USA. America is an incredibly sporty nation but it is their own indigenous games which rule. You know the ones, that generally involve a humungus amount of padding, helmets and time-outs. There is football in America but it's as far from the beautiful game as you can imagine. Instead it's a tough game played by tough guys, the ball isn't round, it is rarely kicked and each squad has enough members to populate a small city. When the season's over we get basketball and hockey, the latter played on ice not grass, then in Spring it's Lacrosse, a delightful game which involves hitting your opponent with a stick, and Baseball which is basically rounders but played by grown men in pyjamas. 

To find some proper football I have to look for soccer, the American version of the beautiful game. For TV coverage there is the Fox Soccer Channel, but that's a hefty subscription service and also pretty useless. For a brief period during the World Cup in 2010 soccer made mainstream TV and the pundits who normally spend 24/7 arguing about every other sport but soccer suddenly became experts on the game. The USA "victory" in the opening game against England was analyzed in depth, well more specifically Rob Green's goalkeeping was mercilessly mocked, then suddenly the idea was floated that the USA might actually win this tournament. The excitement and the coverage lasted all of 2 weeks till Ghana knocked them out of the competition!!

It's not a completely barren playing field though, as over 18 million people play soccer in the US with over 40% of these being female players. Just about every Town has a programme of some sort and the sport flourishes in high School. Last Fall I got the opportunity work at my local High School when I was appointed coach of the girls Varsity team. To be selected for Varsity is a great honor and can have a big influence on an individual's future, to put it simply Varsity is the school's first team which competes against other schools in the State Championship. When I took the job I knew that there would be a few cultural differences but soccer is football... right? I couldn't have been more wrong. 


First of all there was the language barrier, American English and English might sound the same and use many of the same words but that's where the similarity quite definitely ends. After rabbiting on to my players about the pitch I spotted their puzzled looks and realized that they thought I was talking about the Pitcher in either baseball or softball. I learnt very quickly, therefore, to call the pitch a field, refer to their kit as uniforms, ask their parents to sit in the bleachers not the stands, check whether they had their cleats with them and set up a washing rota for the pinnies!!

The fields also proved to be a challenge and during our season we played on a wide variety of surfaces and sizes. Our own home field was almost square and would have barely been suitable for grazing sheep back in Derbyshire, but I soon found that it was one of the better grass surfaces. At Dover High School the grass was so long there could easily have been chalky white cliffs hidden in the undergrowth, whilst in Pawling we played on a softball field with one goal area scarred by the location of the pitchers mound, a raised sandy area devoid of any grass whatsoever. 

Spot the ball

Then there were the 'turf fields, synthetic 3rd generation astroturf surfaces marked out in a grid iron pattern for football. A football field is 53 yards wide and 100 yards long plus it has two 10 yard end zones at either end. Often the soccer markings started at the back of each end zone which resulted in a longer and narrower pitch than I was used to. Just to confuse me even more the end zones were sometimes a different color to the rest of the field with the school nickname ... Mustangs, Indians, Bears etc ........ painted on the surface.

One really interesting difference though was that two referees were appointed to officiate every game. There were no linesmen and instead each ref was expected to cover one half of the field. This system worked really well and meant that the officials were able to stay in touch with the game no matter where or how quickly the ball was played. On the downside however their interpretation of the Laws of the Game was very creative, rendering the traditional old English tactic of "getting stuck in" totally useless!!! As for any banter with the officials, to put it in the local vernacular... furgeddaboutit!!!!!!!

Having said all this though, the season was incredibly enjoyable and a great learning experience which I hope to go into in future blogs. 

Yorktown @ Brewster

Going global at last

England's young starlet, Jess Clarke 

I was recently sat on a train heading out of New York City when my eye was drawn to an advertising poster which showed 4 women jumping for joy in front of a sports stadium….. an advert for this summer’s women’s soccer world cup to be held 4000 miles away in Germany. It's the 6th tournament to be played since the first one in China back in 1991 and off the field it’s shaping up to be the best tournament yet. Ticket sales have been phenomenal with over 450,000 already sold meaning that many of the stadiums will be full to capacity. Then there’s the tv coverage which promises to deliver imagery unparalleled in the history of women’s football - a long way from the days of a lone cameraman with a microphone!!!!! For some games FIFA tells us there will be 18 cameras as well as the provision of spider cams and helicopter cams, let’s just hope that the quality of the imagery is matched by informed pundits who can speak knowledgeably about the game……. Not the Andy Grays and Richard Keys of this world!!!!

Atlanta Beat and USA star Kylie Wright

On the field the competition should be intense and the 11-0 scoreline which opened the last tournament in 2007 should quite definitely be consigned to the past. Each group appears to be nicely balanced and although it has top seeds and favorites the games ought to be closer and more competitive than ever before.

My personal interest lies with England in group B and the USA in group C. Both groups seem to be very finely balanced and I think ripe for a few surprises. In group B I’m sure Mexico will be keen to show that their victory over the USA in qualifying was no fluke, whilst New Zealand with an astute English head coach don’t expect to be in Germany just to make up the numbers. It’s Japan, though, that I’m really excited about, they are a neat and precise team, well  deserving of their 5^th spot in the world rankings. The English will have to be at the top of their game to beat them. In group C the USA lead by Swedish head coach Pia Sundhage will have to overcome Sweden, Korea and Colombia, not an easy group by any stretch of the imagination. Always a powerhouse of women’s football the USA uncharacteristically made hard work of qualification this time around so it will be interesting to see whether that was just a blip on the radar, or a symptom of something more seriously wrong in the American game. 

Kelly Smith, the England and Boston striker in action against Spain

Realistically though can anyone seriously see any other outcome other than a German victory in the final? They have dominated European competition since 1989 and have also convincingly won the last two world cups. On home soil, urged on by a home crowd they should be unbeatable. Although I can't finish this blog without acknowledging the pressure that they will be under to deliver to an expectant nation. How they deal with a level of hype and media attention that has so far been unseen in the women’s game could be the deciding factor in the eventual outcome of the tournament. 

Whatever happens I for one can’t wait, let the games begin

England's Sophie Bradley in a tussle for the ball with Sarah Hagen of the USA in a U23 international in 2010