After watching the UEFA Women’s EURO Soccer Championships, Ged Naughton is convinced the women’s game is a better sport to watch than the men’s. Too bad men are programmed to think otherwise.
“She’s got a great left foot [pause] and a lovely pair of tits.” Everybody laughed, so he said it again: “She’s got a great left foot [pause] and a lovely pair of tits.”
I was in the local club on a Friday evening, and the England v. Spain match in the UEFA Women’s EURO Soccer Championships was on TV. (It’s a working men’s club. So in the past, only men could be members and women weren’t allowed in, but that’s illegal now. Still, there were only men there on this occasion, as is usually the case.)
The Women’s EURO tournament began on July 10 and finished on July 28 with a cracking final full of skill and entertainment. Germany beat Norway 1-0, after the German goalie, Nadine Angerer, saved two Norway penalties. Saving one penalty is hard enough, but to save two in one game is breathtaking. Amazingly, she wasn’t the only goalie to achieve that feat during the tournament. Denmark’s Stina Petersen also saved two penalties in a group game against host Sweden.
In the Final, there were 27 shots on goal, 12 corners, and only one yellow card. During the entire competition, there were 56 goals scored in open play in 25 games and 15 clean sheets. During the knockout stage, two out of seven games went to extra time or penalties. There was not one red card in the entire tournament. What more could a football fan ask for?
And yet, I have only come across generally negative reactions. Not only the above example, but I heard one friend telling another that the local team he played for when he was 14 could beat the best of the women’s teams. No, he qualified his statement, the team he played for when he was 13 would beat them.
And another family with three boys aged 9, 11 and 13, and a sports-mad Dad hadn’t watched a single minute. We talked about Andy Murray at Wimbledon, the return of the Olympic stars one year on, and even the Tour de France, but when I asked, “Have you watched the Women’s Euros?” I got a blank “no” from them all.
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Maybe I’m speaking with the over-zealousness of the convert, but the Women’s Euros have been fantastic. (The ‘best Women’s EURO ever’ according to uefa.com, but, of course, they might be biased.) The level of play has been high across the board. In the past, women goalies got a lot of stick, but—apart from the odd fumble—the skill level of the ‘keepers has risen dramatically. The outfield play has also reached lofty standards. You see confident ball skills in all areas of the field, defences are tight, midfields are creative and players run with the ball when they can, and try to beat opponents one-on-one.
Although most teams lined up in the conservative 4-4-2 formation, the majority had the tactical cunning and individual skill to switch to something more fluid when they needed to. (Sadly, the English team was a disappointing exception.)
Most of all there is no screaming at the officials, time-wasting, feigning injury, or cheating. It’s been a delight. It feels like a golden age in women’s football could be about to dawn, with the emphasis on skill and ball play as much as on speed and fitness.
Attendance was high. More than 200,000 watched the matches in the stadiums while more than that number again watched on big screens in the ‘fan zones’ set up for the first time in key Swedish cities during the tournament. Around 50,000 attended the final and 10.5 million watched on TV. An estimated 55 million had already watched the tournament’s matches on television before the final. Such figures outstrip previous EUROs and also challenge most of the statistics for any previous women’s soccer tournament. Karen Espelund, Chairperson of the UEFA Women’s Football Committee, said: “It’s been the best EURO ever, and I can say because I’ve been involved in all of them since 1987.”
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So, why is the male sports-viewing population so dismissive?
You could easily put it all down to rampant sexism. Stereotypes tell you there is no place like a working men’s club in Northern England for beer-soaked males to express their misogyny. But I don’t think it’s down to women hatred. At least not entirely.
Sport nowadays is packaged and marketed rigorously and ruthlessly, which has several effects.
First of all, there is a hierarchy of sports scheduling. So if you’re not at the top of that pile, you don’t get the coverage you want at the time of the year you want in the prominent slot you want when something deemed more important by the broadcasters is being televised instead.
Secondly, the saturation of the top sports means that no fan is able to have an original opinion. In the past, you went to an event and you formed your own judgement, but now you have battalions of commentators and summarisers telling you what you’re supposed to think. You watch a match and you see an incident with your own eyes, but then the pundits ‘interpret’ it differently. It’s unbelievable—and slightly frightening—how many people then go with what the expert has said rather than with what they actually saw.
Finally, because we’re so trusting of this mixture given to us by our broadcasters, we’re not brave enough to break the rules. Although I must give credit to the BBC for the excellent coverage of the Women’s Euros this year, we still don’t see how it fits into the bigger menu laid out for us by television. So we don’t know what to think or say about it.
I’ll give this example: locally, we have an amateur football league called The Northern League. Most of the players are paid no more than travel expenses, but many of them have been at the fringes of the professional game at some time. They will likely have been at the academy of one of the Premier League clubs as a teenager, or even played a few seasons in the lower divisions.
Like women’s football, the standards of fitness and skill are high—not much lower than the professional men’s game. And where there might be the occasional ‘howler’, most games are fast, skilful and full of commitment. And there is also a blatant lack of the histrionics, referee-abuse and gamesmanship that exist at football’s upper echelons.
Now, in the last seven years, my local team, Consett AFC, has finished second three times and fourth once in the Northern League, and yet the average home crowd is about 150, which for a town of around 27,000 is pitiful. The huge majority of football followers in Consett prefer to watch—and talk about—the two Premier League teams in the region, both of which are about 12 miles away.
So, actually I don’t think many men are genuinely die-hard sports fans. I believe sport gives them a set of data and pre-formed opinions that they can use for social interaction, in the same way that disparaging comments about the wife or other women also offer common ground for male-male discourse.
The example I used at the outset of this piece—‘sweet left foot; nice pair of tits’—shows the dichotomy that takes place when two of those pre-programmed responses clash. I’m supposed to be knowledgeable about football, but I’m also supposed to be disparaging about the women’s game. So what do I do here?
“Help! BBC! ITV! SKY Sports! Please tell me what to think!”
Photo: AP/Scanpix Sweden/Stefan Jerrevang
“…no screaming at the officials, time-wasting, feigning injury, or cheating.”
Pride for the game.
Agreed
Hi Ged and thanks for your piece.
“The ‘best Women’s EURO ever’ according to uefa.com, but, of course, they might be biased.”
I guess that it’s something they, just like the Olympic committee, just say after each game… 😉
And regarding the penalty saves. I saw the Sweden-Denmark game. And saving a penalty kick is more dependant on a bad shot (and pure luck) than a good goalie, I Think.
But I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the games 🙂
I reckon at least one of the penalties saved in the final was a ‘good save’ as well as at least one of the two saved by the Danish goalie against Sweden. But often it’s down to bad penalty-taking, as England’s men’s team regularly proves. Maybe there’s a need for an article on penalties?
I’ve long been a bigger follower of the US Women’s team over the Men’s. This may be because they win more, and I don’t get frustrations like the Ghana match in the last Men’s World Cup as frequently. There is a sliding spectrum between competition as game and competition as spectacle. Every league tries to make their sport out as a game, but if we’re being honest with ourselves the big money leagues are all about spectacle. Artificially hyped drama. The story off the field, if it’s a compelling redemption story or a recent run-in with the law. “Revenge” for… Read more »