R.Vinello

Anyway. The Women’s Cup Final was held in Nottingham and my family who live 10 minutes’ walk from the City Ground went along. My 12 year old brother, who is a keen Arsenal fan, has seen Arsenal Ladies almost as often as Arsenal’s men’s side and is just as enthusiastic about supporting them. If he and his friends grow up with an interest in watching both men’s and women’s football this can only be a good thing – I think it is desperately important to get away from the idea that only women could be interested in the women’s game.

It’s not so much of an issue because there are so many things wrong in the UK regarding popular attitudes about women’s football (and women in general) – the word ladies is a small thing by comparison. I have yet to play in a park with my women teammates without spotting at least one incident in which a male passerby makes some sort of harassing remark – usually something ultra creepy that mixes a come-on with a nasty threat. I’m indeed grateful to my teammates – my instincts are to take the bait – they ignore it, which is a far safer route – they’ve in fact been violently attacked, and were regularly subjected to threats and insults when they first started playing in the 80s – usually from male players as our team would take the field. (This usually happened during the transition periods between league games or training sessions. There’s an article about the team’s experiences of this stuff in an issue of ‘Soccer & Society’.)

The “ladies” thing comes from a different place – it’s more like from the era of the 1920s. It’s old fashioned. This is a place where guys will say ‘ello darlin’ to you on the street – and it’s nice. My own teammates (ladies) great each other in fact with ‘hello darlin’. It’s sort of southern, in a way – things that sound corny to outsiders are more like affectionate holdovers of times gone by. And the adult women’s soccer scene is so much more bad ass here – partly there’s nothing like the middle-class AYSO/soccer-mom scene here (esp. for girls), plus the sport has more working class roots – ‘ladies football’ couldn’t possibly call to mind an image of blonds in matching sweater sets & pearls, as it does to Americans. No – here ‘Ladies Football’ is more rock and roll – more Joan Jett and Lady Dynamite, less Doris Day.

The US pro-league will help women’s football around the world. So many countries are on the cusp of floating professional leagues – England, Scandanavia, France, Germany – a little outside pressure will help.

Perhaps players will need to organize and fight, as the men did in the early years of the game?

Failing that, the only possible solution i can see is for Arsenal Ladies to go and play in the Scottish Premier League. Surely they’ll come at least 3rd?!

I’m also curious about Jennifer’s thoughts on the use of “Ladies”, as it strikes me similarly.

If the Kelly Smiths and Birgit Prinzes of this world join the WPS, it will have the effect of lessening the domestic (and European) dominance of Arsenal Ladies and 1.FFC Frankfurt, but it will also rob those leagues of their marquee players. It also creates a real possibility of the type of “club vs. country” debates that are common for Western Hemisphere (and African) male players, but relatively unknown in the women’s game. The WUSA (in which Prinz played) had just those effects, and was seen as far from a completely positive thing by those committed to the women’s game in Germany (at least as far as I could tell from the general football and Frankfurt press when I was living there).

As since Jennifer is here and uniquely qualified to answer a question I’ve had for a while, do female players in England find the “Ladies” nomenclature to be at all problematic? It’s always struck me as more than a bit paternalistic (and therefore in keeping with the general attitude of Premier League clubs).