One of the UK’s most successful women’s football teams has dropped the word “ladies” from its name – just in advance of the 30th anniversary of the team’s founding! While the team is being formally renamed the Arsenal Women Football Club, Arsenal announced last week that “the name Arsenal Women will be used sparingly, primarily to avoid any confusion with the men’s team… Video and pictures will make it clear which team we are talking about. We will wherever possible refer to our Women’s team as, simply, ‘Arsenal’ - just as we do our Men’s team.”
Over the past three decades since its founding, Arsenal has been the most successful club in England women’s football winning 43 major trophies. Arsenal’s women’s and men’s teams work together closely, and the women’s team receives full backing and support from the club. That sense of cooperation was part of what inspired the change in the name, but the club also says that they felt the name change – including the choice to use gender signifiers only when necessary to avoid confusion – is more fitting for the state of the sport, both now and in the future. “This is a clear signal of togetherness and unity and is more in keeping with modern day thinking on equality,” the announcement read. “This is an important and progressive step as we embark on the next chapter of our history in women’s football.”
While I’ve admired their progress, let’s not pretend that the quality has been anything but awful on occasions.
Bar perhaps two or three players, we have been technically poor, given the ball away a ridiculous number of times, lacked shape, made poor decisions, and reminded me of a Division Three side from 1973 that insists on going long ball at every opportunity.
This side looks to be on the same trajectory as the men’s side, getting left behind by superior coaching in other countries.
I had planned to watch it but forgot we were out tonight. Followed the match on my phone. Gutted we didn’t make the final but hey ho, it is England after all.
But, really, were they really good, or are we not allowed to criticise?
Just get the feeling that because the media have started to get a sniff of a potential new money stream that the sport is being bigged up before it is fully formed.
Talking of women’s sport, how unlucky was Laura Muir tonight?
She just missed out on a bronze medal and the photo finish showed that it was actually Caster Semenya’s cock that just swung across the line to take third.