
{"id":47045,"date":"2023-05-12T16:12:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T15:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/?p=47045"},"modified":"2023-05-12T16:56:43","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T15:56:43","slug":"joy-and-challenge-why-do-girls-want-to-play-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/joy-and-challenge-why-do-girls-want-to-play-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy and challenge: Why do girls want to play football?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of girls playing football is at an all-time high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fuelled by a combination of excitement around the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/euro-2022-lionesses-win-final-with-extra-time-victory-over-germany-12662936\">Lionesses\u2019 Euros victory<\/a>, greater access to sports, and an increase in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefa.com\/news\/2023\/mar\/07\/england-womens-lionesses-euro-legacy-achieved-20230803\">equal opportunities<\/a> &#8211; there are now more girls than ever participating in <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/a-guide-to-womens-football-clubs-in-south-yorkshire\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">football<\/a> outside of school hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, not all girls aspire to be the next <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lionesses\/?hl=en\">Lioness<\/a> or compete for the <a href=\"https:\/\/womenscompetitions.thefa.com\/en\/News\/The-FA-Womens-Continental-Tyres-League-Cup\">Conti Cup<\/a> in a top-league team. Some girls simply want to create a community for themselves and relish the fun of the game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always liked watching football, so it made sense to also start playing it. I love watching women\u2019s football, and I was looking into starting a new sport,\u201d said 17-year-old Phoebe Rogers, who <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/a-guide-to-womens-football-clubs-in-south-yorkshire\/\">plays<\/a> for her local team Stoneham FC in Hampshire and took up football after falling out of love with dancing competitively.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poppy Gaten, 13, who plays for a local team in North Norfolk, also recently started playing outside of school in the past year. \u201cI thought it would be fun to try something new and work out what I\u2019m good at and football was one of the things I really enjoyed at school,\u201d she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Screenshot-2023-05-12-at-15.55.27-781x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-47059\" width=\"302\" height=\"396\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Poppy Gaten winning Player of the Match<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Phoebe and Poppy are one of the many girls nationally who play football. Data from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportengland.org\/research-and-data\/data\/active-lives\">Sport England<\/a>, which pre-dates the Euros victory, showed 669,000 girls participated in <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/we-work-so-hard-just-to-get-our-dreams-shattered-players-share-the-struggles-of-making-it-in-womens-football\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">organised football<\/a> in 2017-18, but by the end of the school year 2020-2021, that figure had risen to 777,000.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, there was also a 200,000 increase in the number of girls participating in <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/a-guide-to-womens-football-clubs-in-south-yorkshire\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">football<\/a> in informal settings, such as a park kickabout with friends. This trend is visible beyond just England as, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.futurelearn.com\/info\/courses\/football\/0\/steps\/6325#:~:text=According%20to%20FIFA%20there%20are,facilitate%2060%20million%20by%202026.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to FIFA<\/a>, there are now 29 million women and girls playing football globally, with the goal of increasing to 60 million by 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phoebe needed a new outlet and described herself as an athletic person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For her, much of the enjoyment surrounding <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/we-work-so-hard-just-to-get-our-dreams-shattered-players-share-the-struggles-of-making-it-in-womens-football\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">football<\/a> comes from the sheer joy of just participating in the sport. Playing gives them the opportunity to switch off and just focus on the pitch &#8211; providing some much-needed relief from school and life stress.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI love the feeling of chasing for the ball, being able to beat someone to the ball, and just playing a game and having a good time,\u201d says Phoebe. \u201cEspecially now that I\u2019m doing my exams and will be going to university soon, I like having a hobby I enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poppy agrees with this statement but also says that the challenges with the game give her something to enjoy and focus on. \u201cYou have to be very brave when you&#8217;re shooting or tackling but if you&#8217;re down at the back in defence you have to be a bit more brave because you have to stop someone getting past and scoring,\u201d she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gold.ac.uk\/educational-studies\/staff\/clark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sheryl Clark<\/a>, a girls&#8217; sports researcher at Goldsmiths University, explained that encouraging fun-led play is crucial to keeping girls in the game. \u201cThe structure of football itself needs to change if we want to change who can play it and who feels comfortable,\u201d she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSome coaching, which is bad coaching in my opinion, reinforces ideas of hierarchy. Whereas if a collaborative and peaceful setting is set up where kids are helping each other and enjoying the sport it would be more beneficial than setting it up as it being about who can dominate it and who can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poppy explained she plays with only girls because the boys in her cohort can often exclude the girls from the game. \u201cMy team is just girls because the boys usually just pass between themselves leaving the girls out,\u201d she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSometimes it can be challenging and hard but that\u2019s the best part because I like to push myself into doing my best.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Phoebe had a different experience and found that her male peers were encouraging her <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/leading-expert-believes-reliance-on-mens-football-clubs-is-hampering-the-progress-of-the-womens-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">football<\/a> endeavours. \u201cI hadn\u2019t kicked a ball in a while before I joined my team,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut I had a kickabout with the boys that I\u2019m friends with in the park, and it helped me increase my confidence. Luckily, they were really nice and gave me tips and it made me feel better ahead of my first training session.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For these two girls, football is a new venture &#8211; and one that they want to continue. It\u2019s something for them to sink their teeth into while having fun and keeping fit. Phoebe is starting university in September and says she wants to try out for the campus team and use it as a way to make friends and maintain a healthy lifestyle.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poppy wants to continue to play throughout her secondary school life. \u201cI definitely want to keep playing <a href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/12\/girls-development-squads-at-risk-of-being-scrapped-across-uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">football<\/a>, because I would love to play against a lot more people and make loads more new friends, and just have fun,\u201d she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the number of girls and women playing football reaches a global high, Sheffield Wire spoke to two girls who have recently started to play about why they love the sport. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":47053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[24,1032,1261,1269,45,1270],"class_list":["post-47045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-football","tag-girls","tag-girls-football","tag-lionesses","tag-sport","tag-womens-football-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Joy and challenge: Why do girls want to play football? 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