Beth Mead in the England training camp [Catherine Etoe]

After seeing England crowned European champions on an emotional day at Wembley, CATHERINE ETOE reflects on how the Lionesses – and women’s football – got here

IF Wembley Stadium had a roof, it would have been raised to the heavens on Sunday as a packed house roared England on to the most precious of victories in the final of Euro 2022.

Crowned European champions after beating eight-time winners Germany in front of a record crowd for any Euro final, men’s or women’s, this was an England we could all feel pride in.

And as thousands crooned Sweet Caroline and the players danced around the pitch, hugging and crying in turn, it took every ounce of self-control not to sit down in my press seat and weep.

It is 21 years since our late editor Eric Gordon encouraged me to travel to Germany for my first European Championship.
“Why not just go?” he said as I stood in his office mulling over my options. One hastily penned fax to UEFA later, I was on my way.

I’d covered Arsenal’s players on England duty several times by that point and this was just another chance to write about them.

But there is something special about the day-to-day closeness to the players and intensity of matches that tournament football inevitably brings.

So even after watching England get thumped by Sweden and be sent packing by hosts and eventual victors Germany, I was absolutely hooked.

There was no glory attached to covering England in those days. They were but a minnow in a sea of European giants, the players still working full-time, and manager Hope Powell spending her days fighting the FA suits for scraps.
Journalists fared little better, a minuscule press pack battling for space in a world dominated by men’s football.

Yet I always knew my reports would have a place in this newspaper.

In fact, there was space for women’s football here before I was sent by Eric to cover my first Arsenal match in 1999, but I was given free rein to up the ante.

And I did so, covering Arsenal as they chased European glory across Scandinavia; reporting on England from World Cups in China, Germany and France, and European championships in England, Finland and Sweden.

A young girl watches a mural honouring the England team go up in Euston Road [Simon Lamrock]

It may have seemed bizarre to some – a local paper giving airtime to an England football team that so few people knew or even cared about.

But this wasn’t self-indulgence.

The CNJ has never followed the pack when it comes to sport and we knew that women’s football had value to our readers and deserved its platform. It was just that nobody else had realised it yet.

They all realise it now, of course, now that a fully professional England side packed with flair and character have sparkled in a home Euros to become the darlings of the nation and newsworthy subjects for the national press.

Catherine Etoe reporting from the European championships in 2001

This England’s achievement means something to me, too, and I felt the breath pull out of my lungs and sobbed openly as I watched thousands throng along Wembley Way to support them on Sunday.

I’m so happy we have come to this, but it has been no easy win. The 1921 ban on women playing football on FA grounds lasted 50 years, set our sport back decades, and there is still a long way to go.

But for now, we can look back on a tournament well played.

Football came home this week, we are told. I’m proud to say women’s football has always had a home at the CNJ.