• trickylens
    8 hours ago

    I'm happy to talk about it. There's a subtext to how you are allowed to talk about it, If you are talking about it. When you are not just abusing women athletes. There's little room for support and objectivity.

    It's ra-ra-ra, or bad person. No room for nuance.

  • Sevenpanorama_fish_eye
    4 hours ago

    Although very fortunate that the keeper kindly gave her a second go. She looked nervous before that penalty yet didn’t in the shoot out last game.

  • Sevenpanorama_fish_eye
    3 hours ago

    In was reading in the athletic recently that WSL crowds were down last season. I’m sure this will give them a short term burst before people realise that it’s crap again.

    The most exciting moments generally come from mistakes, of which there are many.

    It’s great the game is growing, I take my young daughters to play and will encourage that. It can only get better.

    I imagine England are ahead of other nations with the amount of money put in?

  • Ingopanorama_fish_eye
    3 hours ago

    I would have thought we're light years ahead of other nations for the same reason America is, basically because we have a big white middle class.

  • Charliepanorama_fish_eye
    3 hours ago

    I’ve been surprised by how much I’m enjoying this tournament. Yes, the quality is poor and there are plenty of elementary mistakes, but the entertainment levels are high, sometimes amusingly so. Just as watching kids play under 11s games, or adults at almost any level below the premier league, can be entertaining. Lots of hit and hope, rushing about with little purpose, missed tackles, awful goalkeeping and general fucking about. Due to my treasonous tendencies, I have no love for any England team in any sport, with the possible exception of the cricketers, and I couldn’t care less who wins on Sunday but I’ll certainly be watching.

  • stevepanorama_fish_eye
    2 hours ago

    I don't really agree with that, although I don't now do social media so this site is probably now the widest conversation I have about football. The last two England games have consisted of very poor defensive errors leading to goals conceded and then a lot of huff and puff trying to get back in the game. I don't think England have played anywhere near their level in this tournament, but I also don't claim their level is equivalent to the men's game. I also don't see why it needs to be compared, it should merely be regarded on its own merits.

    The positives that you highlighted above are all really important. Women's sports have always had a raw deal, as arguably have all female activities and contributions for most of modern human history, and it's a good thing that more attention and investment is going into the game. As a result the performance levels are undoubtedly improving and the pool of players is also growing, but these things take time. There are times when it is frustrating to watch because of the errors and there probably is a danger that we dismiss those errors as also happening in the men's game because they do, but not with the same consistency. But, it is also genuinely entertaining, and not in a patronising way, and there are genuinely engaging stories of sporting achievement against the odds, which for me is what sport is about. As "fans" we tend to think it's all about us and our desire to be associated with a winning team, but it's actually all about them breaking boundaries.

    Ingo does highlight a genuine issue with the women's game. There is a tendency for it, in England at least, to be dominated by the white middle classes. Elite training facilities are often in leafy suburbs and hard to reach if you don't have a supportive adult with access to a car, and as with everything excluded groups (and in sport women generally are a relatively excluded group) have to work an awful lot harder to achieve than the mainstream.

    It is getting better. The pool is getting bigger. A lot of people genuinely enjoy it. Even when they play badly the England team is quite engaging. Is it overhyped in a compensatory way for years of active harm done by men in the football authorities? Yes, it probably is. Does it depend on external investment? Yes, but that's how sport tends to work, ask the cyclists, the triathletes, or even the male footballers.

    There is a challenge for clubs as well. When I was briefly involved in the Forest Women's team there was a serious conversation about what it would mean to be absorbed into the men's club. I argued at the time that if the club was going to be called Nottingham Forest it had to behave like it, it needed to be brought under the wing of the main club and it had to target elite performance. Others who were far more embedded in the history wanted to stay grassroots, which was a hard conversation to have but in that case they shouldn't use the name, in my opinion. Now, that they are part of Forest and have progressed some of that conversation needs to be revisited. They need to balance wanting to compete at the level with developing the game across the region, being a beacon to inspire while also actively supporting grassroots clubs and providing development pathways for young girls to improve the level and grow the pool. The women's game has inherited some of the PL mindset (and its owners who might have non sporting reasons for involvement) of buying in talent to win, but developing it is far more important.

    Anyway, England were poor last night but I still enjoyed it. I prefer the men's game personally and most of my football time goes there, but that doesn't invalidate the women's game or those who prioritise it, all power to them.

  • Jakepanorama_fish_eye
    2 hours ago

    I watched the first half with a feminist, commented that I didn't think this team was as good as the team that won Euro 2022.

    Apparently that's not A OK thing to say.

  • Sevenpanorama_fish_eye
    2 hours ago

    I have to be careful what I say as my wife played to a high level and has played with the older ones (most are pundits now) but she does also find it a bit poor.

    Although it has grown for the youngsters I’m not sure it has on the level many would have hoped. I live in a white middle class town with a thriving junior football club and whilst they have a women’s team and some older junior girls teams there were 3 girls across the under 5s and 6s last season (2 were mine) out of around 40. The girls are still pretty much taken to the dancing classes.

    The club also made a thing of coming to the club to watch the Euro games, they had cancelled this by the third group game and nothing since. Can only assume it wasn’t very popular.

  • Ingopanorama_fish_eye
    2 hours ago

    I think there's a bit more to this as the whole tribal mongdom is part of the fun with football. And whilst I'm sure the purists on here will say they don't, I'd suggest that anyone who wouldn't have got even the slightest bit of enjoyment from calling Glyn Hodges a useless sack of shit is a liar. Call me sexist but calling women a useless sack of shit is bad form.

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