Natasha Chahal

In January, after Chelsea beat West Ham 4-2, the Sun ran the headline: ‘Cuthbert Harder! Chelsea scorers sound like posh people having sex.’ Erin Cuthbert tweeted that she wished ‘people reported on the actual match reports and women’s football with the same level of enthusiasm’. The article was eventually removed from the Sun’s website even though Piers Morgan defended it: ‘Calm down ladies, it’s called HUMOUR. This kind of stuff happens to male players all the time. Get over yourselves.’ My eyes cannot roll back far enough. 

Turin for English football fans is synonymous with Italia 90 and Paul Gascoigne’s tears but for the 32,257 people at the Allianz stadium on Saturday it meant something else entirely. Ordinarily the Allianz is home to the Juventus men’s team but last weekend’s fixture was Olympique Lyonnais Féminin v. FC Barcelona Femení in the UEFA Women’s Champions League final. Women’s football tends to be marketed to children and the women’s liberation movement, which is nice and infuriating in equal measure.

Through childhood and adolescence, the autumn brings the excitement and apprehension of the new school year: new uniform, new lace ups, the promise of a future, uncertain though it may be. When I finished university, I remember a distinct feeling of disappointment as the autumn approached. What now? Will every month be the same as the last? At least there was still the beginning of the new football season.

If someone were to ask me how I spent my summers, the books I read, the fashions I liked (or didn’t) with each passing year, I would have little to no recollection. If you asked me where I was (and who I was) during a football tournament, I think I could tell you with a great degree of accuracy. There is something melancholic about the end of a large tournament, maybe to do with measuring life in trophies and seasons, or the way it signals that the end of summer is approaching. I look back on tournaments with the nostalgia non-football fans might feel for – I don’t know – royal weddings, general elections or solar eclipses.

Something strange happens to fans when they watch football. Even more so when watching the national team. For many, as their team progresses through a tournament, superstition takes over. They have to wear the same shirt (unwashed) as last time, or be in the same place to watch the game. The weather’s the same – an omen surely? Is the match on the BBC or ITV? In the 1998 World Cup, England even had their own faith healer. But Eileen Drewery couldn’t stop them losing to Argentina on penalties in the second round and was among the reasons Glenn Hoddle got sacked as manager the following year.