Let’s start with more good news for the women’s game as the
16/17th November will be classed as Women’s Football Weekend (it’s
another men’s international break).
Rather much like the Nonleague day that the GKA reported on a
few weeks ago, folks are being encouraged to go and watch their local women’s team
whilst there is no Premiership or Championship action for the men. The idea will
be an annual attraction to capitalise on the reported growth of the women’s
game.
England V Germany, at Wembley on 9th November, is expected to be the largest crowd in this country ever for an England women's game. There have been larger crowds in the WSL this season so far, but
this blog is showing that attendances at lower level games are still poor.
FA Cup Attendances for the GKA games
– Men V Women
|
Men 6850
|
197 Women
|
On Sunday 17th November
at 15:00 the women’s Merseyside derby is being played at Anfield for the first
time – this is a great step forward and it will be worth visiting such a great
historical stadium. Well done
Liverpool!
1921
The FA had pressurised Football
League Clubs to prevent games from being held on their grounds. They had used
the argument that the game was too much of a strain on the female body. This was a key decision that halted the
growth of the women’s game for almost a century.
Many of the female players,
at the time, pointed out that football was no more dangerous than hockey and
that most of the female players were enjoying better health through playing
football. The women’s game had raised
thousands through charity games that went towards the War effort and the
supporting of returning soldiers – the FA turned a blind eye to this. Public opinion was swayed by the tabloids as
many Newspapers reported that women’s football was ‘undesirable’ and not safe
for women to play – arguing that large crowds for some games were simply
because of the novelty and that had died down.
In the next round we’ll
talk more about the outcomes of the FA’s ban…
27th
October 2019 (aka, two penalties and a massive chicken anxiety) …
We are on to the 5th
batch of games for the women’s FA Cup (2 Preliminary and 3 Qualifying games)
and I haven’t paid a single penny at the turnstiles to watch a match.
Stadium costs so
far – Men v Women
|
Men £54
|
Zero Women
|
I was surprised by this pinned
tweet on the Stockport County Women’s feed.
It was going to cost £3 to
get into the Stadium.
However, when returning
blog guest Adam Webster and I arrived (it was a 7-minute drive from Adam’s
house), the turnstiles were locked, and the gate was open. We entered, enquired
within the café about paying, and it turned out to be another free match.
The Stadium in Woodley is shared by Stockport Town men’s
team and has a capacity for 2384 spectators, including 192 seats. I counted 39
people in the crowd.
We walked along the stadium wall and looked at the
artificial surface.
Above was the main seating
area, including a bar that was closed.
Extra seating was behind one of the goals.
The standard GKA corner
flag photo was taken.
The lighting was difficult.
It was simultaneously dark and sunny – this made taking photographs problematic
without a professional camera.
This Brighouse Town Twitter
feed shows the teams entering the field of play https://twitter.com/i/status/1188455804824895488
The GKA managed to get a
shot of the coin toss…
And a dark photo of the
14:00 kick off.
However, we had the best
seats in town, along the halfway line….
… Unless Brighouse Town
were attacking, in which case we couldn’t see a thing – including their penalty
on the 37th minute that made it 0-1.
Apart from several dodgy Stockport throw-ins, in which they tended to
put themselves in trouble, and a long-range effort from Stockport, the game
stayed 0-1 until half-time.
Adam explored the
‘LifeKitchen’ for options as it was cold when the sun was not shining in our
faces.
During the afternoon we’d
ordered two sausage butties, a coffee, a can of coke and two hot chocolates,
totalling £9.50. Adam was outraged at
the cost of £1.50 for a hot chocolate!
The second half kicked off…
And we noticed the above sign by
the side of the pitch.
Adam was upset
as he was just about to run on the field and eat his sausage butty.
On the 55th
minute, there was another penalty, this time for Stockport and the score was
1-1. This means that women have overtaken men in the penalty race.
Penalties and Cards
– Men v Women
|
Penalties - Men 1
|
2 Women
|
|
Yellow Cards – Men 17
|
2 Women
|
|
Red Cards – 1
|
0 Women
|
As the half continued,
Stockport began to take control and were much the better team. Number 8 at the
back won every header and Number 4 in Midfield displayed great balance and
ability.
Number 4 pictured above (taken
from Stockport County’s Twitter account).
The Stockport dominance led
to a well-deserved goal on the 65th minute.
I noticed that the crowd
had grown in the second half, from 39 to 75 people. However, it was pointed out
that many of the ‘fans’ were the Stockport Town FC men’s team who were due to
play at 16:00.
Until this moment, the
atmosphere was relaxed, and I hadn’t heard a single swear word until 5 minutes
to go in the match.
The tension was ramped up
as Stockport’s defensive rock (the aforementioned number 8) shouted a double
‘Fucking Hell Ref,’ after she was judged to have fouled a Brighouse player.
The Brighouse pressure
started to build, and it seemed that few people in the stadium wanted extra
time!
1 – Adam was cooking a
Sunday Roast for his friends and he needed to get a chicken in the oven.
2 – The Stockport Town
Men’s team were due on in 10 minutes.
3 – The sun was behind a
cloud and I was freezing!
It went darker and Adam’s
chicken anxiety began to grow.
The floodlights started to flicker,
and the Brighouse pressure increased until…
It became 2-2 after an equaliser on the 89th minute –
the whistle blew.
The Stockport Town men
invaded the pitch and started warming up and Adam rushed home to get his
chicken started.
There was a brief period of
confusion before the 1st period of extra time started and after 15
minutes it was still 2-2.
‘Come on ref, we’ve got a
game on 15 minutes ago,’ shouted one of the Stockport Town coaches.
A Brighouse player turned
in the box, created space and slammed the ball past the keeper… onto the cross
bar.
Adam returned and the full
time, extra time whistle blew – it was still 2-2.
I’ve seen 4 women’s games in
this competition so far and 3 of them have gone to penalties.
As the girls moved down one
end of the pitch for their penalty shootout, the boys moved to another end to
continue their warm up.
Stockport missed 2 out of
their first 4 penalties and lost 2-4 as we rushed off to curtail Adam’s mega
chicken anxiety.
The GKA thanks Stockport
County Women for their excellent addition to the adventure.
The Brighouse Town Women
celebrated in the dark and won £600 in prize money.
Route Women’s
|
Mossley Hill
Ladies
|
Burnley Belvedere Ladies (No show)
|
|
Curzon Ashton Ladies 2
|
2 Mossley Hill
Ladies (2-4 Pens)
|
|
Sunderland West End Ladies 4
|
4 Mossley Hill
Ladies (4-5 Pens)
|
|
Mossley Hill Ladies 1
|
3 Stockport County
LFC
|
|
Stockport County LFC 2
|
2 Brighouse Town
Ladies (2-4 Pens)
|
The women’s 1st Round Proper Draw was
live on talkSport2s Women’s Football Show on t’Radio at 18.15 on Monday 28th October 2019.
Last week the men's draw was live on t'telly on BBC2...
I listened intently to the radio to discover the fate of the GKA's next adventure…
Next
up for the GKA
Saturday
9th November – Men’s 1st Round Proper
Draw Number 20 – 15:00 Ebbsfleet
United V Notts County FC
Sunday
10th November - Women’s 1st Round Proper
14:00 Norwich Vixens or Liverpool Feds V Brighouse Town AFC Women
More information about the new opposition after their replay at a later date...
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