The Crystal Palace / Zaha ‘scandal’ has stirred up a lot of interest. Below are some thoughts on today’s article in the Guardian. The writer demonstrates the problem with developing the women’s game with the ‘sense of entitlement’ route the favoured one.
Brings up an interesting dichotomy between equality and a return to the olden days when women needed men to give them a shove in the right direction and approval, with a pat on the head, in order to advance themselves. Sadly indicative of a sport bereft of identity and ideas.
Developing women’s football, as suggested in the article, with a sense of entitlement and pulling on the tail coats of the brother clubs is just stupid if you want to produce a decent product. You will merely produce an inferior product to the men’s game if you try and copy it.
I watched the Everton ladies stuff my club Lewes in the FA Cup last year. Everton played a sublime, slick, skilful and technical game of football. There was no cheating and feigning injury. It was £6. I’d watch them more often if I lived in Liverpool and not Lewes. It was refreshing.
The game reminded me of watching football decades ago at Selhurst Park, before money choked football of it’s charm. Just a good game of entertaining football.
There is a gaping hole in football with millions, like myself, who are happy to watch a great standard of football, less all of the crap that goes with it.
You fund it by getting the FA to subsidise the game so that the top two tiers can have full time players. Then you can build your own product. Palace were wrong to not give basic help but were right to say in effect go out and find sponsors. That is how you grow organically. To motivate and show initiative.
The article suggests women’s football should live off hand out’s from the main men’s clubs to progress. It needs to do the opposite and think outside the box.
There is very little alternative thinking or ideas in the women’s game as the article demonstrates. That is the problem. Like it or not it is going to be hard work to increase interest and as we can read on here, the stereotypical view of women’s football is that it is crap. I was guilty of that view until I went to a decent game.
The BBC, BT and Guardian ramming it down our throats won’t grow the game. Getting people into the grounds by reaching out to them will kick start the game.
You’ll never get ‘equality’ with the men’s game but you can produce a much better product and who knows where that will lead.
More thoughts: https://bit.ly/2M89vJt
The Rights of Fans. 