[Football] Women's World Cup - are you now a fan?

[seagullwedgee]

Not a fan. The standard of footballing skill is still quite poor, so I can’t derive any sense of sporting adrenaline from it.

In the same way that a devoted watcher of ballet would probably find it very difficult to observe an 18 stone man doing a pas-de-deux and other technical graceful moves, and just looking relatively poor at it.

I wish I could get it. But I just can’t. I understand how and why others can like it and pay to go and see it. I just can’t.

 

[Wilko]

So the FA saying that some women’s games will become ‘double headers’ with men’s games, perhaps if the ladies played directly after an Albion win on a Saturday afternoon at the Amex they would get both a larger than average crowd AND everyone would be suitably boozed to give the girls a good atmosphere. Personally I am up for that idea, if you can stay in your seat.

I really like that idea. At the moment the only thing that puts me off is playing in Crawley, if they played in Brighton I would definitely go, shame Withers is not up to the required standard.

 

[Bob'n'weave]

No. For the same reason I don't watch div 3 football. It's shite football. Looks like over 50's walk-ball.

 

[GT49er]

No, sorry, not for me.

If they want to play football, fine, If people want to watch - fine. If the club want to support a women's team - fine; probably the right thing to do. Good for the club, fair enough.

But - there are some sports I'm just not interested in: rugby; hockey; tennis; golf; baseball; basketball; cycling, swimming .......... and plenty more. You can add women's football to that list. Sorry, nothing personal; good luck, ladies - no ill-will to you or anything. Enjoy yourselves. I'm just not interested, sorry.

 

[Megazone]

No. For the same reason I don't watch div 3 football. It's shite football. Looks like over 50's walk-ball.

Really?

When we were last in the 3rd division our strike force was better than it is now.

You'd be surprised how good the lower leagues actually are in England. We've probably got the highest standard of lower leagues in the world hence why the Fa cup is famed for the amount of cup shocks it incurs.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Women's World Cup - are you now a fan?

No.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Didn't watch a single minute of it, so still not interested. The standard is still too low for me to get excited about it.

Though my first ever match at the Goldstone was the England women's team vs Iceland women's team, so I can't be too critical.

PS The goalkeeping is bloody awful

The standard was too low, the goalkeeping was bloody awful, and you didn't watch a single minute of it. That's an astonishing post

 

[BadFish]

I enjoyed the World Cup and thought the standard was pretty good. I will get to games here in Oz when I can.

Makes you realise how far we've come when Brighton fans are getting snobby about the standard of football.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

The goalkeeping is always good for laughs.

 

[Chicken Run]

On the back of a largely entertaining Women's World Cup (notwithstanding some awful refereeing and VAR deciaions) who here is now going to consider supporting our ladies team this coming domestic season?

Season tickets are ony £30 for adults and £10 for kids and me and the wife are going to get some this coming season as the games never clash with the mens first team. We went to 5 games last year and enjoyed the matches so we thought we'd get a season ticket as that covers all 11 matches.

There's been a major promotion of the ladies game during this summer's World Cup so we thought we'd take the plunge and go to the home games this season at Crawley to support our ladies in addition to the mens first team.

Anyone elso going to give this a go this season?

No thanks, but thanks for taking the time to ask.

 

[Guinness Boy]

There's really 2 different questions there.

1. WWC

Positives:
- The games have been mostly played in a good spirit with very little diving, simulation or cynical play
- Despite some howlers (e.g. Australia's 4th v Jamaica, Chile's 1st v Thailand), some of the goalkeeping has been impressive (e.g. Chile's Endler, Argentina's Correa)
- England's progress to the Semi-Final was on par with pre-tournament ranking and expectations despite some poor results in the build-up (e.g. 0-1 loss to NZ at Amex)

Negatives:
- VAR is already casting a long shadow over the game and threatening to fundamentally fix what for the most part isn't broken
- There clearly aren't enough female officials who are a good enough standard. FIFA should use men until such a time that there are, regardless of how it looks.
- Most of the games weren't sold out with blocks of empty seats in the upper tiers frequently deserted in spite of ticket prices from only 9 Euros.

Away from the tournament itself, the media gleefully jumped on the Lioness bandwagon and got behind the England team.

BBC Sport webpages bordered on indoctrination with scattergun coverage of articles of varying quality and dubious insights.

Despite the need for the women's game to stand alone, there were frequent unnecessary and unhelpful comparisons:

“Jill Scott beats Peter Shilton’s record"
(No, she hasn't. It's a different game.)

"Five ways women's football beats men's" https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48742850
(To save you clicking...1 - value for money; 2 - more goals; 3 - women stick to the rules; 4 - global competition; 5 - LGBT+ support)

It frequently resembled a primary school playground. All that was missing was 'girls are better than boys, so nerrr...'.
Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, it predictably came thick and fast in the 'Have Your Say' comments.
The moderators are probably still in therapy...

When teams lose 13-0, it's unlikely that expanding to a 32 team tournament is worth FIFA's consideration away from the usual moneymaking and bribes.

Nevertheless, and despite all of the BBC's attempted re-education, it was an enjoyable tournament with some outstanding goals (e.g. Bronze v Norway).

So there's a good future ahead for the beautiful game globally and a step forward in terms of future sponsorship and commercial partners.


2. Albion Women

Even with all of the focus on the Lionesses, the attendance numbers for domestic games don't lie.

Crawley's certainly an issue, but not necessarily the overriding factor here. Nor is the very cheap ticket price. It's clearly something else.

From earlier postings, it's likely that those that do will continue...and those that don't definitely won't. More reinforcement than change of views.

Watching from the comfort of a sofa is one thing, but how many extra will be motivated to head to Crawley on a wet November afternoon?

The longer lasting legacy that the WWC will hopefully have is encouraging more girls to kick a ball and join a team for friendship and health.

If the target supporter base prioritizes Lionesses over Love Island, the future for the domestic game will be assured.

Good post. I enjoyed a lot of the World Cup for what it was worth but there are some major issues still. It looked to me like there are only really four to six sides of even reasonable quality and I’d question the validity of a World Cup where the refereeing (video and on field) was so poor, where a 13-0 result is possible and where the England team has a left back who can’t throw in (having even one foul throw in a World Cup is a bit of a joke). All that could have been ignored if the BBC hadn’t been effectively running a re-education/ brainwashing campaign.

I watched all the England games without really feeling the same connection I do to the men’s team but certainly grew to appreciate some of our players I.e. Lucy Bronze who is a very decent footballer. Both our allowed and disallowed goals on the semi were crackers. Shame the penalty was so awful.

Will this get me going to Crawley in the middle of winter? Absolutely not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[pastafarian]

No .....but I am enjoying the nude pictures of certain players doing the rounds on whatsapp

 

[DumLum]

I enjoyed the knockout stages of the women's world cup. Pretty much the same way I enjoy the Rugby World cup. I've never been to a Rugby match and I have no desire to go to a women's football match.
I'll probably tune in for the women's Euros in a couple of years.

 

[Megazone]

The standard was too low, the goalkeeping was bloody awful, and you didn't watch a single minute of it. That's an astonishing post

Just so you know, I did watch the whole tournament but I was closing my eyes for 20 seconds of every minute just so I could make this statement on NSC.

I'm more than surprised you didn't consider that to be the case?

 

[DumLum]

I do believe the women players at the world cup should be paid the same as the men now though.
I will not feel this way about the domestic game probably ever....well not until they are pulling in the same finances as the men.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I do believe the women players at the world cup should be paid the same as the men now though.
I will not feel this way about the domestic game probably ever....well not until they are pulling in the same finances as the men.

Why do you think the WC players should be paid the same but the league players not?

Both the WC and league for the women generate tiny amounts of money compared to the men's game.

 

[Pudos]

Top international is ok, not sure club football would be watchable for too long. Mind you most of the women seemed far less likely to fake injury, fall over, scream and roll around than increasingly embarrassing part of the men's game.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Fan is strong, as I watched our ladies and the standard was quite poor.

Lionesses though, thoroughly enjoyable perhaps even more so than the men’s team.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Geestar]

No

Sent from my TA-1020 using Tapatalk

 

[Goldstone1976]

Not a fan. The standard of footballing skill is still quite poor, so I can’t derive any sense of sporting adrenaline from it.

In the same way that a devoted watcher of ballet would probably find it very difficult to observe an 18 stone man doing a pas-de-deux and other technical graceful moves, and just looking relatively poor at it.

I wish I could get it. But I just can’t. I understand how and why others can like it and pay to go and see it. I just can’t.

As knowledgeable about ballet terminology as you are about transfer rumours, I see. A pas de deux is not a “move”, it’s a duet - a term to describe two dancers dancing together. The clue is in the word “deux”.

On topic: enjoyed the 5 halves of football I watched of the WWC. Won’t be going to watch the Albion women - I doubt the standard is anywhere close to the better international teams, and I’m not prepared to drive 110 mikes each way to find out.