England women’s team unites fans as once-ignored squad eyes nation’s first World Cup title since ’66

LONDON – It’s simple to grasp why Gail Newsham can’t forestall grinning as she prepares for England’s football team to play within the ultimate of the Women’s World Cup.

Newsham, 70, grew up at a time when ladies in England had been banned from the game — referred to as soccer right here — and helped lead a resurgence within the recreation as soon as the ones restrictions had been lifted. Now she’s on the point of watch Sunday’s recreation towards Spain on TV and hoping to peer her team convey house the sector championship.

“I’ll be wearing my shirt, I’ll be having a sausage roll and a glass of bubbles,” Newsham stated, already carrying her blue England jersey. “That’s what I’ve done every match, so I’m going to do it again on Sunday and just, you know, cheer the girls on.”

She gained’t be on my own.

When the Lionesses take to the sector, they’re going to be subsidized by means of hordes of ladies rooting for his or her heroes, moms and grandmothers celebrating the growth that has been made since they had been denied a possibility to play the sport. They and rabid female and male fans from all backgrounds hope this football-mad country can in the end win a World Cup after 57 years of frustration. England’s best World Cup title got here in 1966 when the boys gained.

If remaining 12 months’s European Women’s Championship ultimate is any indication, a lot of the country will probably be gazing. More than 23 million folks, or about 42% of the inhabitants, tuned in to peer England beat Germany that day. Prince William will probably be gazing the general, too. He posted a video on social media apologizing for his lack of ability to wait, and wishing the team neatly. His daughter, Princess Charlotte, 8, sat beside him with a ball on her lap and chimed in “Good Luck Lionesses!″

Once again this summer, the success of 23 young English women and their Dutch coach has been a bit of good news in a nation struggling under the weight of crippling inflation, a health service in crisis and seemingly endless political squabbling.

Newspaper front pages were filled with pictures of England players Lauren Hemp and Alessia Russo after they helped power the team to a 3-1 victory over Australia in Wednesday’s semifinal.

“I feel like the Lionesses give us hope — to all of us, boys and girls, women and men,” stated Huda Jawad, a feminist and member of a fan workforce recognized as the Three Hijabis for his or her conventional Muslim headscarves. The team supplies “something to look forward to and to be proud of and to show that actually football, like society, can be joyous, it can be equal, it can be hopeful, that we can have community and friendship and solidarity.’’

That hasn’t always been the story of English football.

In a nation that sees itself as the birthplace of the world’s most popular sport, people expect to win. But the men’s national team has disappointed fans at every major tournament following 1966.

That frustration boiled over in 2021 when England’s men lost to Italy in the final of the European Championship at Wembley Stadium in London. Vandalism and clashes with police after the game led to dozens of arrests, and three Black players were bombarded with racist abuse after missing their shots in the penalty shootout that ended the contest.

But in 2022, the women won their own Euros, wowing spectators with pinpoint passing and flashy goals that attracted record crowds, burgeoning TV ratings and adoring coverage.

After a second year of success characterized by smiles and hugs and more booming goals, the team is described as almost a model sisterhood. Jawad, whose group campaigns against discrimination in football, sees the team as an antidote to the stereotype of rowdy English football hooligans, though more needs to be done to increase diversity in a largely white squad.

“The Lionesses give us an opportunity to rewrite that story and say that actually the England team reflects a younger and more hopeful and more international kind of global outlook that wants to embrace diversity, equality and really wants to give people a sense of values …” Jawad stated. “It sets the cultural tone for our country in a way that our politics doesn’t, unfortunately.”

But successful the Women’s World Cup would take issues to a brand new degree. Some are already not easy a public vacation if the Lionesses win.

Little women — and slightly a couple of large women — are proudly dressed in their England shirts.

Pubs and specifically erected fan zones across the nation are anticipated to be overflowing on Sunday morning, in spite of the 11 a.m. native get started time required by means of a middle of the night recreation in Australia.

At St. Mary’s Sunbury-on-Thames, west of London, Vicar Andrew Downes determined to shorten his Sunday provider so the congregation may watch a livestream of the fit within the parish corridor.

Cold bubbly and sizzling bacon rolls will probably be served — now not precisely bread and wine, however possibly extra suitable for the fans.

“We will be praying like mad that the referee is a lover of the Lionesses,’’ Father Andrew said. “I mean, Jesus saves. Let’s just hope our goalie saves and we come home with the cup!’’

That would provide an emphatic moment of redemption for women who lived through the long and sometimes controversial history of women’s football in England.

Newsham helped tell that story when she wrote a book about Dick, Kerr Ladies Football Club, which flourished during and for a few years after World War I, when women filled the sporting gap left after top men’s players went off to the trenches. Women’s teams, many organized at munitions plants, attracted large crowds and raised money for charity. One match in 1920 attracted 53,000 spectators.

But that popularity triggered a backlash from the men who ran the English Football Association. In 1921, the FA banned women’s teams from using its facilities, saying “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.”

The ban remained in position for the following 50 years.

That didn’t forestall Newsham from enjoying side road soccer with the men in her place of birth of Preston. And after the ban was once lifted, she spent 20 years enjoying for Preston Rangers on substandard pitches, regularly with out converting rooms and even right kind bogs.

The FA took over duty for the ladies’s recreation in 1993, starting the sluggish means of making improvements to investment and amenities. Football author Carrie Dunn, who has chronicled the good fortune of the team maximum not too long ago with the ebook “Reign of the Lionesses: How European Glory Changed Women’s Football in England,” remembers going to England press conferences that were held in cafes because too few reporters were interested in speaking to the manager.

Things accelerated after the 2012 London Olympics, when authorities began to recognize there was a global audience for the women’s game.

“It’s about time,” Dunn said. “So, yes, people might be noticing a change now, but hopefully that change will be something that we see forever from now on.”

Newsham is beyond excited about the prospect of winning the World Cup.

“It’s meant to be,’’ she said. “It’s like a Greek tragedy, but with a happy ending. That’s how I feel. It was a huge injustice in 1921, and it’s taken its time to get back to where we are. So I’m really looking forward to Sunday.”

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AP World Cup protection: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup