As I made my way home tonight, I stopped by my dads for a cuppa on the way home. He was wryly bemused I had been to a South West England Regional Premier Division game and a women’s football match. That it was a lower league women’s game a three hour drive from home may raise a few eyebrows, especially to a non-football fan whom may not understand all the stories many of us have behind this curious thing called football club loyalty. My journey home allowed me to reflect on how I got to be to supporting ten football teams in Wales and England and football in the first place.
It all started, how it does for most boys at least and a few lucky girls, kicking a ball around the school playground at breaktime and discovering how almost everyone else seemed to support either Liverpool or Manchester United. I’ve always been different and didn’t want to go with the flow and wanted my own team, so I plumped for Manchester City. However I found school sport intimidating, and found solace as a geeky kid hanging around the music room and drama studio instead. I kind of missed out.
So it wasn’t until many years later, idly scrolling the internet I suddenly wondered why have I never made the trip up to Manchester to watch a game. So soon after I was on the train up to Manchester to make my debut at Maine Road, a 1-1 draw agianst Portsmouth. Despite City being in the Championship in a battle against relegation season. Simply being in a football stadium with over 30,000 fellow fans chanting ‘We love you City, we do…!’ and watching the match unfold was magical and atmospheric. I was hooked and sought to repeat this journey as much as possible.
However I was living in London at the time and trains up to Manchester weren’t cheap, neither is it easy getting up early on a Saturday and returning late at night. So a friend suggested going to a local team, Enfield FC. Yep, I got hooked again, despite this being non-league football, so Enfield FC (and then Enfield Town FC, quite a story btw, being part of the 1st fan owned football club in England) and my first game was a 2-2 draw in the FA Cup
I moved up to Manchester, got myself a Season ticket, away games, a trip to Wembley and Manchester Derbies, the joys of English league football in Tiers 1 2 and 3. It was all quite wonderful. Whilst living in Manchester I had an interesting conversation with a female friend and Coventry City supporter.
“Have you ever been to a women’s football match?”
“No”
“Why Not?”
” I just feel it would be creepy to go and watch attractive young women running around in football kits”
“I understand about the football kits! why do you think I watch mens football!”
She won that argument, however, an opportunity didn’t really arise for some time and I forgot about it. I have another friend who gets turned on by women wearing dresses, I’ve never quite got that!
After some years living in Manchester, I realised, country boy that I am, that I didn’t really get living in big cities and the hireath of Wales was calling me back home. I moved to Aberystwyth, which meant adding Aberystwyth Town FC to my list of football clubs. I also support Wales (I’m Welsh) and one other English club:
When I was a little boy I found myself in a car on the way to Bristol with my mam and dad and my mam’s friend who had planned a days shopping in Broadmead. I think my dad realised that his role would likely be chaperoning me around clothes shops and thought it would be a better idea to leave the shopping to those that enjoy it and instead take me to my very first football match! My dad spent part of his childhood in Bristol and had an allegiance to Bristol City. I was born in Bristol (my parents moved back to Wales when I was 5). However, Rovers happened to be playing at home that Saturday, it was a 1-1 draw! However when Rovers scored I leapt up, jumping around manically, screaming with delight, backed by the roars of delight from the thousands of Rovers fans and I’ve kind of been a bit of a Gas Head ever since my first football match, though shamefully averaging a lot less less than a game a season.
It had taken me a long time, to re-discover how much I loved watching football. That was me, a football fan supporting 5 teams.
I then found myself living in Cardiff, [sorry Cardiff City, I already had 5 teams by this point] and a group of female friends suggested going to Newport to watch Wales Women play Northern Ireland, it was only a £5 to get in. Finally the opportunity had cropped up to experience women’s football.
Of course it was another 1-1 draw, but I massively enjoyed the experience. Yes, I was attracted to several of the players, however in a list of things I enjoyed most about going to the game, supporting Wales, the atmosphere (despite only using one stand of Rodney Parade) and simply the game of football itself were amazing, the leching was fairly low down. I felt as though I now could and was now happy to watch women’s football!
However even Cardiff didn’t quite suit me, so I moved back to Aberystwyth and very shortly afterwards Covid happened. I was mightily relieved to not be living in a city. I could walk in the hills, stroll along the beach, even ride my bike around the deserted streets, but I couldn’t watch live football (incidentally there were some fans who watched the games from the roof of Tesco’s car park, from where you can only see half the pitch, football fans are like that) Whilst I am a Aberystwyth Town supporter, I never got that warm fuzzy fan glow, the love of a team I’d got from watching my four other teams. So after Covid, I found myself started regularly attending Aberystwyth Town Women’s team, learning the attributes of our players and falling for the team.
At some point it occured to me that I now actually support ten football teams,as each men’s club I support also have a women’s team. Which meant that there were teams I notionally support but have never been to any matches of. Something I should rectify, I didn’t want to be merely an armchair fan of teams I support!
The thing about football is that it’s an amazing sport that can enjoy watching it at any level. I learnt this watching Enfield (in comparison the Man City). All you need is two teams reasonably close together in terms of ability and you can have a fascinating football encounter as any non-league footie fan will tell you. And fundamentally there is no difference between mens and womens football. Sure, males in general do have a tendency to be taller, stronger and able to run faster, but that isn’t important. Elite sport is great, as a Man City fan watching some of the greatest footballers of our times is and it really has been amazing. However, these top levels of skill are not in themselves what makes football appealing, its the encounter between two reasonably equally matched teams vying to score goals against each other and being emotionaly committed to one side emerging as winners, or at least gaining a point against tough opposition. It’s the contest, with simply good levels of football skills, some strategy unfolding and understanding of the game coupled with the sense of bonding with a team as a community of supporters and learning your teams players. The football league systems of Wales, England are there to enable teams to find their level and seek to improve to play at a higher level.
It’s football as community, it’s this sense of being part of something and having fellow fans having your back. I’ve had huge problems with anxiety in my life, but being accepted as a fan of the football clubs I support, has been so therapeutic for me, football grounds were somewhere I felt could be myself, and cry in public because my football team had lost. Like my own single experience of going to a Bristol Rovers mens away game and just be instantly accepted as a fellow fan is wonderful, despite years of absense. I stopped following Man City for a while because I strongly objected to the people who ‘owned’ the club and pumped in the dubiously gathered billions to achieve success. However, one day my dad, said he’d been offered tickets from a season ticket holder for him and his partner to go to Swansea City against Man City, do you want to come? I decided to go for the day out and managed to get tickets in the Away End with my now pointless membership card. At that game I realised that Man City fans are still Man City fans and that I was still one of them, despite the issues of ownership and silly money. The fans hadn’t asked this to happen, we were still singing” Like fans of the Invisible man, we’re not really here” with a trophy cabinet bursting with Premier League titles. I did of course shut up , well burst into laughter, for the ‘Sheep shaggers’ accusations!
Yesterday I did something I suspect most people would find a bit unusual. After ringing the church bells for Sunday service ringing as usual I foregoed breakfast and instead drove over to Bristol to watch Bristol Rovers against Warminster Town in Englands South West Women’s Regional Premier Division. Motivated to tick off one of my teams and do something a little crazy. I have had on paper supported from afar. I was a little nervous, not knowing what to expect in terms of skill levels, what the ground was like or how the other fans would be, would I actually even like the Gas Girls or not? I was asked when I arrived ‘Who do you know in the team? “None of them, it’s my first time!”
Lockleaze is an outdoor sports centre with a number of football pitches. Every town has them, filled at weekends with various local teams, from tiny children to aging men. Bristol Rovers play on the main 4G pitch, which you can view from the terrace of the bar. Unusally for a low attendence game it’s not lining up along the sides of the pitch, but like bigger stadiums where you can get a better view from height and indeed like Enfield Town’s Donkey Lane, you can enjoy a pint from the bar terrace whilst watching the game. I nervously made my way up onto the terrace to see the teams warming up on the pitch with maybe 40 -50 people gathering to watch the game, many of whom are friends or family of the individual players.
This was actually familiar to me, Wales away and Aberystwyth Town home games which are also like this, 30-50 people watching. I’ve kind of got used to standing next to players’ fathers and trying to be careful what I say about them. But this is women’s football so it’s almost always positive stuff! Like Wales women away and Aberystwyth Town.This wasn’t the 15,000 people at Cardiff City Stadium to see Wales home games or the Memorial Ground for the mens team, or Eastlands for that matter, or even Donkey Lane, just a small intimate crowd. The fans were a friendly bunch and soon enough the whistle went for the start of the match.
It was a bit windy! Also the wind was blowing from behind the opposition, which made thing easier for Warminster. It was a scrappy start. I’ve seen several such openings at Park Avenue with neither team able to impose themselves. An issue was Rovers were playing with a high defence, an offside trap. However the wind taking the ball forward and a liner who didn’t seem terribly keen on lifting his flag, caused several worrying moments. However Rovers were also slowly gaining the confidence to take on players and pass balls onto runners and were creating opportunities to score. On 35 minutes, Rovers scored. 1-0 justifiably as they were creating more things.
In the second half, with the wind behind their pirate sails, they started imposing themselves more and more and taking control of the game, so on around 60 minutes , with the help of the wind, bagged a second. It’s always wonderful to see a team work out what they need to do and bring about having the better of things and the relief of being able to convert that into goals.
I am here to talk about the warm supportive environments of the womens game. It is perhaps the one things that arguably makes the womens game better than the mens game. Us heterosexual men are generally rubbish at talking about our feelings. However for the 90 minutes of the game the players are at least as competitive as in the mens game. Unfortunatly there was an incident on around 80 minutes where, as I understand it, as the late great rygby commentator Bill McLaren may have said “a wee bit of argy bargy there’ So two Red Cards, one for each team. It was then inevitably the most talked about incident of the game. The Red Mist sometimes decends in football. Fortunatly everyone was physically okay after this. The game ended 2-0 to Rovers. It wasn’t 1-1, what was happening to me. Do my first games at new teams not end as 1-1 draws anymore???
Whilst I had come to this match already being on paper a supporter, I knew after the game that I had already developed a love for this team. That we have the coolest badge ever isn’t important. It’s such a shame that it is a 6 hour round trip, and fixtures will clash a lot with my life and other football commitments, but I’d really love to go back again next week for the last game of the season, but I have life commitments.
Just like at Aberystwyth Town, after the game the players go to the bar for a meal and a drink. It’s so nice that clubs do food for the visiting team, the intensity of the game can be forgotten (well not always) and friendships made. I discovered that the players are also a lovely bunch of people. I’d have loved to hug them all, but alas couldn’t, more on this below.
I don’t think my journey as a football fan being awakened to the women’s game is typical. The growing crowds for Wales and England have perhaps come mainly from success on the pitch and in Wales because of the success of the Red Wall growing the support for Wales footbal in general, matched with qualifications for major tournament finals and our women being annoying close to doing so (Switzerland away was just a smidgion too much of an ask). I have spent time trying to put my finger on what the difference is between mens and women’s football. I don’t think there is any actual difference, it’s just the hangups we have as a society, really it’s just football this crazy yet wonderful game.
Whilst my journey has been far from typical it has given me the opportunity to be a part of and watch a variety of football. It’s left with me with a local team to support and watch individual players develop and opportunities to watch football when visiting England. It’s far better for me than just following one or two teams. I have rival teams, Manchester United, Bristol City, Barnet and England. However the women’s game is much more inclusive, rivalries are less important and confined to 90 minutes on the pitch. I’ve lived in three mustiple football team cities an dEngland and had to get used to sharing a city with other clubs, having friends who supported the other lot. Now supporting Wales women we have Welsh players in many clubs I consider rivals. Football rivalry was never a major part of the game for me. Multiple team and multiple gender support is just nicer.
I suppose the other point is that it would be possible for me to watch football of a higher standard without travelling so far. Football isn’t just about appreciating th egame is going to support and you have to have feelings for the team to to really support them. Yet I’ve found a perfect balances, always a local team and my other teams for special trips away.
I’ve got so much out of my journey to supporting women’s football and whilst the game is growing in popularity, there is still so much to do. Let’s go Gas!
Squimple 