Football needs to build on the momentum and capitalise after a month of packed stadiums and record TV audiencesWhat a journey it has been. There have been many bumps along the way to this historic victory that has created a group of European Championship-winning England legends. The journey does not stop because England have won. Now we have everyone’s attention we need to keep it going.I was overwhelmed by emotions after the final whistle. I did not anticipate that – it was unprecedented for me – but it shows how much it means to those who have been a part of England’s women’s football down the years. Continue reading...
This moment of great magnitude will never be forgotten with England’s players providing a glorious explosion of elationChloe Kelly could have run all the way to Hanwell if they would have let her. The place she was brought up alongside her seven siblings, crashing into each other in west London’s concrete cages, is only five miles from here but it would not have mattered if it was 500 the way she felt; the way all of them did. God, the noise. The explosion, the release, the everything. She had only gone and bloody done it. England had. She had scored the goal, the goal. The one they had been waiting for and for so long.England are European champions. Yes, England....
Injury shortly before kick-off denied the tournament’s best finisher the ending she had craved for an entire career While England danced along to “Don’t stop me now”, Alexandra Popp made a long and lonely walk along the touchline to the pocket of Germany fans in Wembley’s north-west corner. She had been stopped before she had even begun. Two or three of the travelling support were able to catch the pieces of kit she tossed up: a water bottle, a bag, perhaps a spare shirt.Popp lobbed up several gifts although, true to form, there was not a towel in sight. She has never thrown that in and it is why, even in an arena pulsating with the glory of one of...
Football was an intrinsic part of the nation’s identity for years while women were excluded. After winning Euro 2022, they have reached the top of the podiumEngland won. In the end, perhaps that was the only thing that mattered.This is the brutal bargain of high-end sport: it offers hard edges, black-and-white certainties, one pedestal and one precipice. And in front of 87,192 delirious, sweat-soaked fans at Wembley, they beat Germany 2-1 to become champions of Europe for the first time. Continue reading...
Is age, unfamiliarity or deep-seated sexism sweeping me along to the Euro 2022 final without an agonising knot of nerves?In 2014, Cambridge United played Gateshead in the National League play-off Final. Four minutes to go and we were 2-1 up when Ian Miller, our centre-back, went down with a broken ankle. We’d used all our subs. The referee played 10 minutes of injury time. TEN MINUTES. It felt about a year. Gateshead put a header just wide as the clock flicked to 99 minutes. My voice had gone. I could barely breathe. The relief at the final whistle is almost impossible to articulate.Every fan recognises that agonising knot of nerves that goes beyond the pit of the stomach. It is...