I Love Watching Women's Sports
I find it amazing that in 2017, I could have written this article about women's football being shown on mainstream television for the first time. Now that England have won the Euros, and with the Euros back again in 2025, I feel like we have made big progress.
Last week, the normally respectable Private Eye dropped a bombshell. In an article castigating the pathetic attempts of Rupert Murdoch's UK Sun newspaper to dabble in the world of online betting, they declared that gamblers would consider this a light summer as there are no World Cups, Euros or Olympics to bet on. This, as many readers pointed out, is nonsense.
England won the (women's) cricket World Cup at home recently, and they did jolly well at the (women's) European soccer tournament. Right now, also at home, they are having a fair crack at the (women's) Rugby World Cup. What is it about women's sports that makes so many people ignore them, other than flat out misogyny? Not watching women's sports is a mistake. They're enormous fun to watch in that they evoke memories of men's sports from the 1970s. There is less money at stake, which is factually true, and may even show some kind of causality, i.e. there is more sportspersonship, and more respect for the competitors. There are few (very few) red and yellow cards, sin bins, or tantrums. There are almost no professional, cynical fouls of any kind. Female competitors fight bloody hard, but fairly. The goalkeeper for our women's soccer team, after breaking her leg during a match, refused to leave the field for fifteen or twenty minutes, determined to play on. These people are heroes.
I can confidently state that there are more balls on the pitch than in any men's game. They don't fuss, witter or cry unnecessarily, unlike Gascoigne or Beckham. They don't call for the doctor when a fingernail cracks. Watching women's sports is actually fun. And, even better, just like the 1970s, England teams are still half decent at pretty much all of the sports. Yes, folks, you might even see us win something!
True, it has taken a few years for the women's games to get fully established. Now many British soccer teams have fully professional women's teams; they can share the coaches and facilities, and the general quality has risen massively in recent years. Britain has led the world in embracing various women's competitions, with a few European sides very closely matched. Now, finally, they are being shown on mainstream television channels, and live too! Women's sports shouldn't be a guilty pleasure, a secret known only to the few. Next time you get the chance, stick around to watch when you would usually change the channel. You won't regret it.
