‘Football’s not for girls’, England fan recalls being toldpublished at 11:18 British Summer Time
11:18 BST
England v Spain (17:00 BST)
Kathryn Armstrong
reporting from Basel
Image caption,
Louisa is looking forward to seeing her favourite player, Alex Greenwood, take to the pitch on Sunday
Many of the England fans I have been speaking to in Basel
this weekend have been telling me about the barriers they themselves or their
loved ones have faced when it comes to playing women’s
football.
Louisa, who is from Crew and is a big Alex Greenwood fan,
tells me she was fobbed off by a teacher when she was at school and wanted to play
football because she didn’t like netball.
“He said no and kept making up excuses, like ‘we don’t have
enough staff’,” she tells me.
“I wouldn’t give up, so eventually the teacher just said to
me ‘football’s not for girls’, so I just accepted that and assumed that women
and girls couldn’t play football.”
Tehya,17, who is from Kent, says there was no girl’s
football team at her school and so the only way she could play was kicking a
ball around with her brother.
And then there’s Alex, who is from London and says his aunt was
laughed at for wanting to play the sport when she was young.
“A lot of people forget that women’s football was banned in
England for 50 years,” he tells me.