Peter Moore: Lionesses finally make English football entertaining

It will take me a while to recover.

To say the final of the Women’s Football Euros was a little stressful would be like saying the Red Arrows at Torbay Airshow were going a little fast. Having scraped through to the final, they went behind, managed an equaliser, and then won on penalties.

When he was manager at Torquay United, Gary Johnson argued that footballers are in the entertainment business. The Lionesses were certainly entertaining.

In some ways I found them more entertaining than the men’s Premiership. It may sound a strange complaint, but the problem with the men’s game is that they are too good. If every pass is perfect, every shot on target, and the game played like chess on grass, it can lose its excitement. It can be like watching AI players. Perhaps that is why I enjoy watching Torquay United. At Plainmoor, a pass or shot is more exciting if it can go anywhere.

So why wasn’t women’s football popular when I was young? It was not a lack of interest but a deliberate sabotage.

Women have been playing football for centuries. A football has been found in Mary Queen of Scots’ chamber, although for her “a dramatic header” had another meaning in the end.

In 1881 there was a woman’s match between Scotland and England in Edinburgh, followed by two others in Glasgow and Manchester. These were abandoned following violent protests, so football hooliganism is also not new. It is clear which team Mary Queen of Scots would have supported, with her cousin, Elizabeth I, passionately shouting for the other side.

In 1895 the Women’s Association Football Team was founded, with their first game in Crouch End when the North of England played the South. In front of 11,000 spectators, the North won 7-1. As a Southerner, I am still upset.

It was during the First World War that women’s football took off. As the men went to war, men’s football stopped. The women working in the munition factories became close, and so during their breaks they could go outside and have a kick around. Seeing how they all benefited, this was encouraged by their bosses.

The first professional woman player, Lily Parr, also played in the first woman’s team to wear shorts (shocking!). Her wages were supplemented by packets of Woodbine cigarettes.

After the war, when the men returned from fighting, women’s football was seen as a threat to men’s football. There were 150 women’s clubs in England. In 1920 a woman’s match at Everton’s Goodison Park pulled in a crowd of 53,000.

As a result, in 1921 the FA banned women’s football. Women were no longer allowed to use professional pitches, and referees were no longer allowed to officiate.

Of course they did not admit that this was due to a mixture of jealousy and sexism. They wrote, “The game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” They quoted several dubious medical claims suggesting that women’s bodies were too fragile to play football. Try telling that to Lucy Bronze, who played throughout the Euros with a broken tibia and strapped up her own leg in the middle of a game. They also claimed that it would affect their fertility.

It was not until 1971 that the ban was lifted, two years after the founding of the Women’s Football Association. The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 meant that they had to allow women to train as referees.

By 1997 the FA was, at last, on board and outlined plans to develop the woman’s game from the grassroots upwards. In 2011 the Woman’s Super League was formed, and by 2014 there were 2.6 million women and girls playing football in England, making it our country’s biggest team sport.

Even England’s Dutch coach Sarina Wiegman had to overcome sex discrimination in her early days despite having “man” in her name. As a girl she was not allowed to play, and so she cut her hair short and joined the boys. Her fellow players did not mind because she was very good, although she did have a goal disallowed when the other side realised she was a girl.

After the Euros no one could claim that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” Let’s hope that Torquay United Women’s Team can also be successful.