Tag / Tottenham Ladies

by jo

Football, in Particular, Women’s Football

Things have changed so much in women’s football over the last year. Was it really this time last year H was doing Wildcats football sessions every week? Those stopped. You only get funding from SSE for a certain amount of time, so our popular sessions were pulled and moved further away; so we stopped because it was too far.

Wembley Stadium Women's FA Cup Final 2016 seats

Fortunately sessions with our same coach started up the road at Whyteleafe, and a few of us parents who stayed in touch came back. When you’re looking for a session and don’t necessarily want to be too competitive, it isn’t easy. There isn’t a huge amount here, but there are groups.

Then, before you know it, it’s that time of year again – the SSE Women’s FA Cup Final. This year we have Manchester City vs West Ham. Now, obviously were this the men’s team I’d have a problem cheering for either team, but this is the women and so we’ll go along, enjoy a game of football and cheer everyone. Football is funny like that. (it also doesn’t help that West Ham beat Tottenham yesterday)

Wembley Stadium SSE giant sponge hands, football, Women's FA Cup Final 2015

We have our tickets and we’re going in a group from our Saturday football group which is brilliant. It’s something I’ve always wanted. I like doing things in a group and being with friends; we haven’t really had a group of our regular friends who enjoy going to games. I’m hoping that they’ll have special events on like last year, when H got to meet Lionesses Fara Williams and Mary Earp.

H with Fara Williams and Mary Earp

It’s the fifth year at Wembley, and we’ve been to all of them. It’s a fantastic day, kids go free and adults are at the ridiculously low price of £15. I did a group booking and got tickets at £7.50 each.

I’m hoping the weather holds up now!

Then there’s Tottenham Women – rebranded this week from Spurs Ladies (hurrah! about time too) who are on the verge of gaining promotion to the Women’s Super League. We’ve had a great season across both Tottenham teams; I can only hope that the women get to play at the new White Hart Lane stadium sometime soon.

Tottenham women in their play off match vs Blackburn Rovers when they won and gained promotion to the Women's Championship.

If Tottenham do go up then we’ll be able to watch them more often. We have Chelsea and Brighton within a drive-able distance. We’ve seen them play a few times now, H got to meet the players when they played against Crystal Palace.

I’m still unsure if the money aspect of it all is too soon. Clubs like Yeovil Town who have a strong women’s team are struggling and can’t rely on support from the men’s club. Whereas teams like Manchester United bought their way back into the Women’s league because of theirs. It doesn’t seem right, though encouragingly there aren’t relegations happening this season to expand the leagues.

The next few years are going to be interesting….

by jo

Women’s Football, A Bit of Opinion

scoring a goal in football
I’ve loved football for as long as I can remember. I was never taken to a game by my parents – I took them to theirs. The only reason for that was my younger sister being a ball girl. My teams are Tottenham and York City, my main and home team.

I have suitably brainwashed H, so they are also her teams – and it took minimal effort too. As time has progressed we’ve found ourselves watching a lot of women’s football.

Women’s football is so different these days. It’s much easier to play against other girls for a start. We’ve been attending the SSE FA Wildcats sessions at Crystal Palace, and have watched the FA Cup Final at Wembley three years in a row.

H at Wembley

Things are improving outside of our family too. Just today Lewes, a lower league team has announced they will pay the women’s team the same wages as they do the men’s. They have launched Equality FC and I think it’s brilliant!

When you look at the structure of the women’s football league, this diagram helps you see how much things are growing.

Tottenham won the Women’s Premier League Southern Division, whereas Blackburn won the Northern one. The two teams met in a play off with Tottenham gaining promotion to FA WSL Division Two.

Womens football pyramid

England women (aka the Lionesses) are in The Netherlands getting ready for the UEFA European Championships which start very soon. We joined in a Twitter chat on Monday with Casey Stoney who we interviewed a couple of years ago.

Magazines like She Kicks are growing too – a fantastic place to read about women’s football. I’ve bought H a year’s subscription as part of her birthday present. After all, she’s loving collecting the stickers in her Women’s UEFA European Championships album – why not back that up with a magazine too?

It all feels like we’re on the brink of something big happening. Exciting news came this week that Little Mix have launched a campaign with the FA to get everyone to Salute the Lionesses. Check out this video and share your salute too!

What a fab fun campaign. There are plans for H and her Wildcats friends to do a big salute for England this weekend coming which is awesome! I can’t help thinking how brilliant I would have found it if there had been an equivalent when I watched my first World Cup that England featured in (1982 – I just bought the records instead). While this isn’t H’s first tournament, it’s the first one she feels a part of.

The FA recently launched their new site, For Girls over here. I love it. It’s a great site for girls of H’s age to learn about women’s football players.

Girls Football Week is on the horizon too – stay tuned for more news about that very soon! We’ll be supporting it again for the third year in a row.

So yes, I can’t help thinking that right now it’s great being female and a follower and participant of the women’s game. Things really are growing and getting better and it’s a really exciting time!

by jo

Tottenham Ladies v Blackburn Rovers Ladies

Charlton Athletic Panorama
On to our third football match this month, Tottenham Ladies vs Blackburn Rovers Ladies in the FA Women’s Premier League Play Off. Tottenham had won the FA Women’s Premier League South, and Blackburn won the FA Women’s Premier League North.

Here’s where things get interesting. Only one team can get to the Women’s Super League 2 – so there’s a play off final between the two Premier League winners.

This doesn’t guarantee they’ll get into the WSL2 as there’s still further criteria they need to fulfil, but generally the teams in that position have all that in place already.

Tottenham Ladies must have gone in being favourites as they had already completed the treble (League plus two cups) – and this game is the biggest in their history. Blackburn had gone through this season unbeaten, so weren’t an easy opponent.

I suggested to some of my old pals who used to come to Tottenham games with me that we should all attend. Bring our kids (if we had them), and it’d be a fun way to spend a Bank Holiday Sunday. It’s cheap, and if we’re lucky it’d be sunny too. Plus the football would be pretty good and it’s OUR team.

H at Tottenham Ladies

On entering The Valley there were Tottenham volunteers handing out flags and pictures of the Ladies, as well as some blue and white face paint. I love it when things like this happen. We’ve had it at the Women’s FA Cup Final and at an England Men’s Friendly before now. You really feel a part of it! Our flags were ready and our faces striped up in time for kick off.

After a scrappy first 20 minutes with some quite brutal challenges on both sides, the game settled. It was hard to believe that due to Tottenham’s lower league status, most of the players have jobs and do this in their spare time.

Eventually the goals came – and Tottenham sealed their historic quadruple, gaining promotion to the WSL2 for the first time.

Tottenham Ladies win!

As this was the first time we’ve watched Tottenham Ladies play, we needed time to get to know the players. Bianca Baptiste is outstanding – and when you find out that she currently works in a gym you can only hope that the Ladies will turn professional now (I’m not sure if it is a requirement) and Bianca could become one of our star players. She scored the first two goals, and was also Player of the Match.

Wendy Martin’s goal in the 90th minute was fantastic!

Tickets for Tottenham v Blackburn Rovers were cheap. Adults were £5, over 10’s £2.50 and under 10’s £1. We went to Charlton Athletic’s ground, The Valley. The total attendance was 826.

Tottenham Ladies v Blackburn Rovers Ladies

I enjoyed that a few people started singing some songs, even though it didn’t really pick up like at the men’s game. I really try not to compare the two, and I was desperate to start a “Karen Hills blue and white army!” chant but was too cowardly.

The afternoon was fun, there are several new converts to the world of women’s football and I’m now tempted to buy extra tickets for games to encourage more people to come along.

Tottenham Ladies did us all proud. We all made it onto a video at the very end too which was quite amusing!

Tottenham Ladies play their games at Cheshunt FC. They have also played a game at White Hart Lane last season. I’m glad to see that they’re included when it comes to teams representing the Tottenham name.

Tottenham Ladies are definitely our Women’s team. They were always going to be.

Tottenham Ladies

Now Tottenham Ladies are a WSL2 side, they are eligible to apply for a place in WSL1, as Notts County folded earlier this year. All WSL2 clubs can do this as there is a space, but they have to fulfil various licence criteria.

In the WSL each league has ten teams. Clubs play each other twice, home and away, same as usual. From September the WSL will run alongside the men’s, starting at the same time for the first time ever.

We’re part of the BritMums/FA Ambassador group where we’re attending women’s games. We couldn’t attend Chelsea v Liverpool because of this game (which ended up 7-0 to Chelsea). Instead we’re going to see Arsenal Ladies v Reading. Given our Tottenham-supporting status, it’s going to be interesting watching our rivals. It’ll probably be a lot nicer than the men’s game too which can get quite nasty at times.

That’s another thing about the women’s game I like. There’s none of the nastiness there like you can get in the men’s game. Sometimes it can be so intense. The women’s game is a breath of fresh air. It’s the sort of place you want to take your children.