For nine-year-old Evelyn Bull from Leeds, this has been a particularly exciting summer. She plays football for Calverley United Juniors and has been glued to the Uefa European Women’s Championship.
“When I watch the Lionesses do well, it makes me feel really happy,” she tells i. “I went to watch them play a friendly against the Netherlands in June and it was really exciting because I like the team a lot. It’s really cool to see them playing in real life.”
Evelyn’s favourite England player is goalkeeper Mary Earps, to whom she has written an ode in the form of an acrostic poem [with the first letter of each line spelling out the athlete’s name]. The last line is “Special to me!”
Evelyn first became a football fan a year ago while watching Leeds United on television, and when it came to the Women’s Euros, she was hooked. “That’s when I started to play,” she says. “I train on Tuesday nights. Everyone’s really nice there, and we get to play proper games. I really enjoy it.
“Seeing the Lionesses play makes me want to train harder, and it’s nice to see women doing it because women should be able to play football as well. I like it because it means everyone’s equal and everyone gets to play football. I’m really happy they’re doing well because they seem to have worked really hard.”
In West Sussex, 10-year-old football fan Darcy Burrage is still reeling from being at the England versus Spain match last week and seeing the Lionesses win 2-1. “Watching the Lionesses playing inspired me because at first it looked like Spain would win,” she says, “but England fought back and proved you should never give up.
“I love watching England because it’s very tense and thrilling and brilliant entertainment.” Darcy went to the match with her dad Marc. “My dad has been to loads of men’s and women’s games,” she says, “and he said it was one of the best games he’s ever seen.”
Although she’s only six, Lilah Cann has been glued to the England team for the past few weeks while also attending her weekly kickabout in the youth branch of her local Stafford football team.
“I’ve stayed up late to watch the matches,” she says. For her birthday she has asked her mum for England and Manchester football shirts with female players’ names on the back. “I really like playing football,” she says, “and learning about it too.”
Lilah’s mum Megan, a communications officer for a charity, plays for Sporting Khalsa FC, training twice a week and playing Sunday matches. She has experienced first hand the drastic changes in women’s football. “Twenty years ago, there were no girls’ teams where I lived so when I was 10 I played for a local boys’ team,” she says.
“I was the odd one for being a girl who played. So seeing the Lionesses do so well has been unbelievable. Actually, the word ‘unbelievable’ doesn’t really express how amazing it feels, I don’t have the words.
“We went to the England-Norway game, and to see a stadium so full for a women’s team makes everything so worthwhile because there’s been such a bias in football towards the men.
“When us girls started out, we had nothing, we had old hand-me-down kits from men, we had no funding. To see women’s football be a sport in its own right, not just piggyback off men’s football, it’s really moving.
“Women’s football is filling stadiums. The younger girls now coming through have got female football idols.”
What does she say when people tell her that they simply enjoy men’s football more, and that women’s football isn’t as good?
“If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing,” says Megan, “but the constant comparison to men’s football isn’t needed. Women aren’t trying to play men’s football, they’re female footballers doing a sport, and doing it very well.
“These women are professionals, they are here to stay, there are going to be more professional women footballers, it’s going to grow and be here for a very long time.
“Women’s football was banned for 50 years by the FA [women were banned from playing at FA-affiliated grounds], we’re still climbing that ladder, yet look how big women’s football is already, even though men have had 50 years we’ve not had.”
Now 31, Sophie Gillett has been playing football since the age of four and has played for Norwich City. She has also been coaching since the age of 16 and is now a coach and manager of a local U16 girls’ team and a ladies’ side in Norfolk.
“I never really got into the men’s Euros last year,” she says, “but I am extremely passionate about the women’s Euros. My ladies’ team has been sending messages back and forth about how well England is doing, which players are their favourites. There’s been a massive buzz and it’s amazing.”
Gillett felt “quite emotional” while watching the sell-out opener of the Women’s Euro 2022, with the England team playing Austria at Old Trafford in front of nearly 70,000 people.
Yet it’s not just the Lionesses who are making her feel such joy, it’s also the pundits, particularly their reaction to Georgia Stanway’s winning long-range goal against Spain which propelled England into the semi-finals.
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“Seeing Ian Wright, who is a massive, passionate advocate for the women’s game, celebrating Stanway’s goal with former player Alex Scott was amazing, and then when they showed on TV the scenes of crowds in London pubs celebrating, those were goosebumps moments,” Gillett recalls.
“I’ve always said women’s football will never ever be regarded the same as men’s football, and I get small-minded people commenting in sexist ways on the game when I talk about it on social media, but if you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Me and my ladies’ team got together at the local pub to watch England and it was an incredible occasion.”
In February, in the lead up to the Euros, Gillett took her youth team to see England play Spain at Norwich City’s stadium, Carrow Road. “The girls got so much from it, they were buzzing. The Lionesses are inspiring a generation.”
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