A Manchester women’s football group has benefitted from increased access to playing facilities during the slowdown caused by Covid-19, and many more women are playing the game.
Dr. Gemma Sou and Laura Ablitt highlight the need for authorities and providers of sports facilities to make lasting changes that address gender inequalities in access.
In 2020 several news outlets, including The Guardian, reported that Covid-19 “could be the end of grassroots football.” Yet one Manchester-based women’s football group has gone from strength to strength during the pandemic, and their story highlights how providers of sports facilities must recognise their responsibility and role in addressing gender inequality and participation in football.
Back in 2018, Cat Cooke (pictured above with Jenna Saide) was frustrated by the lack of opportunities to regularly play football with other women in Manchester. She decided to take matters into her own hands and helped to set up a social women’s six-a-side football group on the online service Meetup. The number of women taking up the sport and joining her group skyrocketed after the Women’s World Cup in 2019, but they always struggled to access affordable pitches to meet the increasing demand. This is a problem affecting women’s grass roots football groups across the UK. A principal reason is because men’s groups have been established for many more years, and so local affordable pitches were often booked up already, which meant that women had to choose between travelling far or paying premium prices to use private Astroturf pitches. “In the end, we had to settle for playing just two games a week, despite our members shooting up to over 300 before Covid-19” Cooke said.
Women and girls have long been discouraged from playing football, and there has been an inequality of access to sports more generally. The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation reported a wide range of socio-cultural barriers that range from self-consciousness and worries about ability, to restrictive cultural beliefs and safety concerns. Yet women and girls cannot play football if they are unable to access facilities at suitable times. Too often, sports facilities prioritise male sport so that men get facilities at their preferred times, while women must make do with less convenient times. Rupa Ghelani, a member of the Manchester group, says there were many more women who wanted to play football, but more established men’s groups would block-book pitches for multiple weeks. Cat’s group had the option to play during weekdays on pitches after 9pm, which is too late for many members, particularly those who have to look after their children. This meant that “you would only get to play if you were quick enough to sign up to the two games organised on Meetup,” Ghelani explains.
However, in 2020 many of the local men’s groups did not play during the weeks when government rules permitted outdoor “organised” sports only. This is because men’s social football groups are often informal and organised by small groups of friends, which made them ineligible to play. Meanwhile, Cat’s group was deemed an “organised” club because names and contact details – compulsory for the government’s contact tracing programme – are automatically recorded in the Meetup app. Through this serendipitous twist of fate, Covid-19 opened up an opportunity for the women’s group to secure more pitches. “In 2020 we went from two games a week to seven,” Cooke said. Moreover, her group was able to secure these pitches for the return of grass roots football on 29 March 2021, which has gone a little way to addressing the gender inequality that characterises access to football.
Despite the pandemic, hundreds more Manchester-based women have taken up football in the last twelve months. Most of the women who joined had not played football since childhood because of limited opportunities and/or personal and socio-cultural barriers. Membership went from approximately 350 in March 2020 to over 600 in April 2021. The group also started playing games in the park (when the infamously wet Manchester weather permitted) as smaller five-a-side pitches could not accommodate some of their bigger games. Jenna Saide, one of the women who turned to football in 2020, said “girls couldn’t play football when I was in high school, but I’m so glad I started playing last year and think more women of all ages should get involved.”
Football and the sense of community that came with it became a lifeline for many of the women during the pandemic. Games broke the monotony of working at home and provided rare opportunities to socialise in a group. This benefitted the women’s physical and mental health. Having access to more pitches during Covid-19 also gave the women an opportunity to play more consistently (when lockdown rules allowed). This has seen women transform through playing with the group, greatly improving their skills and confidence and highlighting once again how important it is for women to enjoy the same access to football facilities that men currently do. Tuba Turker, who regularly plays with the group, says: “football has enabled me to stay fit, improve my undiscovered football skills, make many amazing friends, but most importantly it helped me realise what was missing in my life - a like-minded female community where I finally feel I belong!”
The Manchester-based women’s group is testimony to the importance of women’s participation in grass roots football. Certainly, there is a huge appetite to play among women of all ages. However, the role of sports facilities as gatekeepers to playing football cannot be ignored. To move towards change, the providers of football pitches and other facilities need to critically analyse what they are reinforcing and what they are preventing in sticking to the status quo. They must recognise the growing market in women’s football as well as their responsibility to address the gender inequality of access to football. Practically, they could review the allocation of facilities and pitch times, and ensure equitable access during peak times for women’s groups. “It’s a shame it took a global pandemic to give us access to more pitches,” says Cooke, “but we’re happy that so many of us get to play now that lockdown is easing”.
If you are based in Manchester and would like to join the group, download the Meetup app and head here: https://www.meetup.com/Womens-5-a-side-Football/
Dr. Gemma Sou is a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at RMIT University and a member of the women’s football group.