England’s historic success at the European Championship last summer has had little impact on inner-city teenage girls with 63% unable to name any of the Lionesses, according to new research from Football Beyond Borders and Youth Beyond Borders.
With 100 days to go before the Women’s World Cup starts in Australia and New Zealand, the report also found that one in four teenage girls still never watch women’s football and only 17% are part of a club.
Speaking at an event to launch the report, the former England and Arsenal player Alex Scott said she was not shocked by the findings. “I’m not surprised, and I don’t know if that’s because of my background and still being real to where I come from and having conversations, but it just doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “I was so outspoken and passionate with Ian Wright during the Euros because I know that I had to overcome a lot to get into the space that I am in now.
“Teenage Alex was lucky, because I signed for Arsenal when I was eight, so then all my focus was on not letting the opportunity go … everyone knew I was already signed to Arsenal, so it was cool right?”
Ceylon Andi Hickman, Football Beyond Borders’ head of brand said that the group, which works with young people from areas of socioeconomic disadvantage who are passionate about football but disengaged at school, noticed a disconnect between the euphoria of the last summer and the reality of teenage girls once the noise died down.
“The Euros felt like a moment. This is our ’99ers moment,” said Hickman, referring to the historic 1999 US World Cup win on home soil. But then we noticed a bit of a disconnect.
“There was a narrative, publicly and nationally, that the Lionesses had inspired a generation, that everyone was going to be watching more football, that WSL attendances were up. All these things are true and we’ve made huge, huge progress. This report does not deny any of that progress but it does zoom in on a voice that often isn’t captured in the national media, and that’s the voice of a teenage girl living in an inner city.
“Focusing on participation and how much more girls are playing misses that emotional thing that we all know, as football fans, is so important to our identity. We really wanted to understand what the picture was for our girls, and we wanted to understand what we could do now.”
The relationship between teenage girls and football is hugely complex because it is not just about getting the physical space for girls to play, it is also about considering the cultural space.
“What was really interesting, and what we dug into, is that men and boys gatekeep culture,” said Hickman. “In schools they dictate the hierarchy of cool and often at the top of that hierarchy is men’s football. We workshopped and the player whose name came up the most was Bukayo Saka’s. He’s peak cool, he’s positioned in the right places, he’s doing the right collaborations and he will dictate what is cool in schools. Unfortunately, girls and women aren’t on that hierarchy of cool.
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“When women’s and girls’ football is seen as the sort of ugly little sister of the men’s game it becomes really difficult if you’re a teenage girl in school who really does love women’s football and you do play. It is hard to be a teenager. And it is even harder to be a teenage girl.
“The adolescent brain is really malleable around ages 13 to 14. They are hardwired for peer approval, the thing that matters most to them is whether their friends like them. So if the thing that means you’re cool in school is men’s football and everything associated with it, and women’s football makes you uncool, if you love women’s football, it’s really hard to embrace that. That was me at school. It’s having a dual identity, you are forced to have one foot in and one foot out.”
The answer, according to the report, is to recode women’s football to make it cool and identifiable, leaning on the voices of teenage girls whose experiences are untold; to hijack men’s football to elevate the women’s game and to elevate representative leaders within women’s football.
Karen Carney, who is chair of the government review of women’s football said: “There have been some brilliant moments like the Lionesses winning and record attendance at games. More women are involved. But there’s a lot more work to be done. With the review I’m doing at the moment, days like this are really important in getting people to understand the barriers.”
