Cowling: bright future

Published: 6 August, 2015
by PAUL COWLING

CAMDEN’S place in the history of football was for ever etched in silver on Saturday when Chelsea manager Emma Hayes led her team to victory in the first Women’s FA Cup final to be staged at Wembley. 

A record crowd of more than 30,000 good-natured fans watched as the former Parliament Hill School pupil guided the Blues to a 1-0 win over Notts County at the national stadium. 

The game itself wasn’t the best advert for women’s football – even the winning goal was a scrappy toe-poke. But, given the surge in interest generated by England finishing third at the Women’s World Cup in Canada, it didn’t really matter as it looks like the fans are thankfully here to stay. 

Attendances for the most recent round of fixtures in the Women’s Super League were up by 47 per cent on the games held before the Lionesses returned home with their bronze medal. 

There has not been such emotional attachment to any England squad since the men came so close at Italia ’90 some 25 years ago. 

We beat ourselves up in Britain for always backing plucky failure, but the 2015 World Cup was about getting behind a team that could have so easily won it, and ended up coming oh so close to glory. 

Sitting in the press box on Saturday, it was gratifying to see a sizeable host of fellow male scribes tapping away furiously on their laptops, and listening intently to Hayes at the post-match conference. 

You would not have got that 15 years ago; only mocking and jokes about how much ironing she might have to do when she got home. 

Judging by the radio broadcast going on behind me, the female commentators did a good job of making what was a boring game sound pulsating. 

Women’s football has indeed come a long way. 

Saturday’s match programme revealed that some of the early winners of the Women’s FA Cup mirror the glorious names inscribed on the men’s trophy. For Old Carthusians and Clapham Rovers, read Howbury Grange and Leasowe Pacific. 

The Women’s FA Cup has a somewhat fledgling history in comparison to the men’s competition, but as the record crowd proved, the trophy, much like the women’s game, has a very bright future.