Why women's football in England is a whole new ball game

England score against Sweden last month Rachel Yankey is arguably the most recognisable face in women's football in the UK. She was the first registered professional female footballer in England, was awarded an MBE in 2006 and, at 31, is the most capped player in the England squad – 109 caps and counting. What's it like being the poster girl for women's football? "It feels like the norm," she laughs. "People have been making comments about me since I was a kid. At the time there were maybe one or two other black players and I was quick and an attacking player. I'm used to it now. I think when I finish playing, I'll sit back and look at it all and recognise all that I've achieved."
It's not too shabby for a girl who adored former Arsenal and England player Ian Wright and started playing football in the park with her older brother and "the boys across the road". She marvels at how much the game has grown. "More girls are playing; we have centres of excellence where you can access great coaching. When I was a kid you went straight into playing women's football – I played in the seniors before I played in the U-18 team." She's especially excited by what this grassroots improvement will produce. "I think the next batch of players coming through in five, 10 years will have the best opportunity to make women's football amazing. They're now getting what the boys have had for so many years, and I hope they fully grasp that opportunity and make women's football even better."
Coaching is what dominates Yankey's time when she's not on the pitch. Following the dissolution of her then-club, Fulham LFC, in 2004, she set up a business delivering PE sessions and after-school clubs to primary schools in Brent, north-west London. She also co-runs a community youth team, the Gibbons Wreckers: "The children named the team. It's pretty cool, right?"
As the game becomes more popular, it brings pressure and expectation on younger players. Yankey's advice is for girls to just enjoy it. "There has to be balance – we've got to make sure it's fun and people play because they love it." Just like in the movie Bend It Like Beckham? "I was in that!" she says. "We're the team in the black kit – the bad actors," she laughs.
She's glad of the airtime her game is finally getting but says "it could still be bigger". What she hates is lazy comparisons. "You can't judge it on the men's game – they're decades ahead of us on this. But there's nothing to suggest we won't eventually go the way of the men's game in terms of sponsorships."
How many professional footballers have a first-class law degree? A preliminary internet search suggests just one – England's Eniola Aluko. How does that work, then? "They're my passions," she answers. "I was put on this earth to play football and for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a lawyer."
Aluko, 24, is a proper star. She was named Young Player of the Year at the Women's FA Awards in 2003 and her prolific goalscoring led Marcus Bignot, former manager at Birmingham City Ladies, to call her "the Wayne Rooney of women's football". Since making her senior debut at 17, she has gone on to score 11 goals and win 55 caps. Was it daunting to be playing so young? "It was tough, very nerve-racking," she admits. "But, you know, I was there because I deserved to be and I played well. Once you play well, you just have to keep doing what you're doing – don't think about it too much."
Football was, she says, a form of expression for her and her younger brother Sone, who plays for Aberdeen FC and Nigeria. "Football was always in  my family in many ways – my dad played and we watched and played a lot." But she wishes she'd had female role models to look up to as a youngster. "I didn't really have any women that I could point at and say: 'I want to be like that.' It was just something I knew I wanted to do."
Aluko cut her teeth at Birmingham, Charlton Athletic and Chelsea before moving to the US for the past few seasons. She now plays for Sky Blue FC in New Jersey, in a league she considers the best in the world. "Week in, week out, I'm being challenged," she says. "It's probably one of the best decisions for my football career that I've made. It's really brought my game to a higher level." The relative invisibility of the game in the UK irks her, and she thinks media exposure is key, something we could learn from the Germans. "You can tell by the way Germany has approached this World Cup that they have gone all out and really put it in the face of the public, and now 80,000 people are coming to the opening game. I think that's the way it needs to be done – spend the money. The women's game is not on TV enough."
But back to that law degree; what are her plans? "I eventually want to build up a sports entertainment law practice and carve a bit of a niche for myself, in terms of being one of the first female lawyers who also played the sport. I think there's something quite fun about that."
Faye White looks like a leader. It's no wonder, really – the 6ft defender has captained for years, both at club level (with the all-conquering Arsenal Ladies) and internationally for England. White, 33, is a pro – and not just because she has a £16,000-a-year contract with the Football Association. "It means we get paid to submit more time to training and rest, which is important as well. Rather than working an eight-hour day, trying to fit in your training before and club training after, and then you wonder why you're always injured or hurting or why you're not playing your best." White is currently recovering from a knee injury – she knows what she's talking about.
She grew up playing football, with her father the coach of her brother's team. She found it intimidating. "Football was for boys then. But I thought, 'I'm good at it, why can't I play?' and in the end, the fact that I did play with boys probably did improve my ability." She says she can spot the girls who've been in mixed teams – their attitude is different. "They seem to want it more because they've had to prove themselves. The desire seems stronger." But she's glad that the loneliness she felt as the tomboy female player is largely a thing of the past. "Nowadays, the message is if you're sporty, you don't have to be a tomboy – I think that's a big difference for girls. We're trying to encourage girls that you can be sporty and competitive without being seen as boyish, or that it's not attractive. It's great that girls can play and feel that it's their sport."
Like many in the game, White made her debut with a senior team at the age of 15. "I said yes as soon as my coaches asked. Socially, it was very different – in the changing rooms, the women would be talking about their husbands."
She didn't even know there was an England women's team until she was called up, aged 17. "Up until then, my only female role models were in other sports – Sally Gunnell, Denise Lewis and Steffi Graf. I admired the way they trained and looked and seemed to be at the top of their sport."
For women's football to really take off, White believes it needs money and exposure. "If it was a requirement that every men's football club had to have a women's team, money would have to be filtered into the women's game and there'd be more opportunities." She continues: "It's natural for people to compare us with the men's game. But it's like watching the 100m sprint with men and women – you're going to see the same kind of thing, but with differences. It's about making it a saleable product."
Hope Powell is tired of this kind of question. I've asked her if there's anything male footballers could learn from how female players go about their business, but she quickly stops me in my tracks. "Let's not make it a gender issue. Let's talk about football, not whether someone's male or female," says Powell. "This is about football. We focus on football. That's it."
There's plenty to say about the football, too. This England squad might be the best Powell's coached – and she's been in the job since 1998. "We've probably got more depth than we ever have done," she explains. It helps, she adds, that many female players have turned semi-pro. "We have 20 players on central contracts. It's not a lot of money, but it allows them time off so that they can train. That was unheard of in my day."
Powell didn't have an easy route to the top. As a child growing up in south London, she had to persuade her grudging brothers to even let her play street football. Aged 12, after being banned from playing in a mixed team, she was scouted by a women's side – but her mum didn't want her to join. "Back then, it was pretty much taboo," remembers Powell, now 44. "It was difficult because of my West Indian culture. My mum didn't understand it. She said: 'You won't be going again.' But I snuck out anyway."
Even when she played for England, life was tougher than it is for current players. "When you play for England now, the FA picks up the bill," says Powell, who won 66 caps as a midfielder. "It was a little more difficult in my day. Most of these players have boot deals. When I played for England, we had to buy our own. We had to bring our own training gear."
That said, Powell still feels her players are up against it. "In terms of what the girls have to go through to get to this level, it is very difficult. They don't have millions of pounds to go and live the high life. They have to work very, very hard. Most of the girls will do something else to supplement their income."
All England's World Cup games will be broadcast by the BBC, but Powell thinks women's football needs more media coverage if it's to grow faster. "It's very sporadic, it's only ever at major tournaments, and then when everything's over, everyone disappears." An increased media profile is the key to the game's progress, she says. "You raise the profile, you get more girls playing. You then develop at the grassroots level, you get a wider base, the standard of play increases, the international team gets better." It's a theme she returns to as we say our goodbyes. "See you after the tournament," Powell says – and she means it.
It's a funny world. Male England defender John Terry earns £150,000 a week, and drives a Bentley. Centre-back Sophie Bradley, one of his female counterparts, has an England contract worth £16,000 a year, and works part-time in an old people's home run by her dad in Nottingham. "In women's football, you're in it because you love the sport," says 22-year-old Bradley, an England newcomer. "We don't get paid what the men get paid. We just love playing, and sometimes that gets the best out of you."
Not that she minds having to moonlight. "I like to go away from football," she says. "That's just me: I like to look after people. I've been brought up with it all my life, ever since I was a little 'un, so I'm just used to it really. And I love looking after the elderly."
Bradley's a leader. She captained England U19s, and several of her Leeds team-mates followed her when she left for her current team, Lincoln Ladies, after the creation of the new women's super league. She laughs off criticism of women's football from the likes of Richard Keys and Andy Gray (who left Sky Sports after remarks over a female referee's assistant led to a sexism row). "Everyone's got an opinion," says Bradley. "I actually think that helped publicise women's football. Any publicity is good publicity." Her reaction, she says, was matched by her colleagues. "A lot of the girls were like, 'Hey ho, let's just move on. We'll show them.'"
In fact, Bradley's been showing them for years. "When I played at school, the lads didn't like that I was playing for a boy's team. But now I'm in the World Cup, they're all texting me, and Facebooking me. So I think the mindset's changed: people are recognising how good women's football is." Ten years ago, she says, "young players like me wouldn't have been recognised in the street. But now, some people recognise me, and come up to me."
As a child, she originally played tennis – "but I was just determined to play football. I used to go on camps with my brother, and got scouted there for a local team in Nottingham." At 14, she dropped tennis altogether, but "never dreamt of being in the England senior team. And now I am." Optimism is her secret. "Keep you hopes high," she says, "and your feet on the floor – and job's a good 'un."
At some level, Steph Houghton probably can't quite believe she is on the aeroplane to Germany. She missed the 2007 World Cup with a broken leg, and Euro 2009 with torn cruciate ligaments. "It was heartbreaking," she remembers, "so I'm just really thankful that I'm here. It means so much more."
Still only 22, Houghton had spells with Leeds and Sunderland before moving to her current club, Arsenal. Some clubs don't integrate their male and female teams very well. But at Arsenal, says Houghton, "the relationship between the men's team and the women's is very, very good. Before the Women's FA Cup final [when Arsenal beat Bristol Academy 2-0], the chief executive came into the changing room to say good luck, and to reiterate how important the women's team is to the club. And that meant a lot to the girls. You don't often see that interest from the men's game."
Like many of her teammates, Houghton shrugs off criticism of the women's game from the likes of Gray and Keys. "I just have a little giggle to myself," she says. "People who've seen our games will recognise that we're good, strong footballers who play good football. Opinion of the sport is constantly getting better. Our semi-professional league is starting to change people's attitudes, and it'll get better as the years go on."
Houghton doesn't feel she's encountered much antipathy. Born and bred in  the north-east, she started playing football in her backyard aged four. "I know other people say that football isn't easy as a sport for girls," Houghton says, "but my family and friends have always been really supportive."
Like most of her team-mates, she is wary of talking up England's chances of success in the World Cup. Insiders privately hope the team will at least make it through to the semi-final stage, but Houghton is focusing on the group stage. "We've got enough self-belief in the squad to know we've got the talent," she says. "But we've got to take it one game at a time. Fingers crossed, we'll get out the group."
Just being at the tournament is a reward in itself. "The World Cup is what we've done all them hours for," says Houghton. "It's why we give up normal life." She wants football fans to watch the tournament, and take it seriously. "Hopefully people will treat it as a football game, not a game of women playing football."
Twelve years ago, Kelly Smith told a national newspaper that "women's football in England is a joke". A lot's changed, then. This England team, says Smith, is "the strongest team that I've been a part of, and I've been in the squad for about 15 years."
Much has happened to Smith herself in that period. In 1999, she became Britain's first professional female footballer, signing for US side New Jersey. Struggling with injuries and alcoholism, she came home in 2005, spent a spell at  Tony Adams's Sporting Chance addiction clinic, and helped Arsenal to the quadruple. Along the way, she's been called the best player in the world, and has scored 43 goals in 104 England games.
So what's gone right? "Hope [Powell] and the FA have really got behind the women's game," says Smith, 32. "Hope's done a great job of educating us, watching games, analysing our performances, other team's performances. That wouldn't have happened 10 years ago."
Yet while her team's on the up, Smith still recognises there are "a lot of non-believers" in women's football. "But until you watch a top-level game," Smith says, "I don't think you can compare men's football to women's." It's a silly premise anyway, she points out. "You wouldn't watch a women's tennis game and compare it to the men's."
Not that Smith hasn't heard it all before. She started kicking a ball against her garage when she was six, and played in mixed teams until she was 13. "It wasn't liked. The parents of the opposing teams were a bit jealous, because I was a girl, and I was better than all their sons. They refused to field a team on two occasions."
Nowadays, Smith won't be drawn on the philandering behaviour of her male counterparts – "it's none of our business" – but she does admit they have it easy. "For the men, everything's pretty much done for you. You just turn up, you don't even have to worry about bringing your underwear. Whereas here [in women's football], you get your salary, but you also need to do other jobs on the side to pay your mortgage.
"I've had loads of negative comments from men, especially growing up," says Watford-born Smith, who now plays for Boston Breakers. "'Oh, women can't play football, they should be in the kitchen.' It's just boring and old. Times have changed, and they continue to change. Women play football, and they're good at it, and have been for a number of years."
From / guardian .