THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Just feel sorry for the girls that wanna play footbsll to be honest and the constant shit they have to put up with from men like joey barton and others that dont want to see the game progress and feel like its a violation of their rights if they are exposed to it.

You can see it earlier in this post, you can see it when a former professional female footballer at the top of their game tries to break into the mens game after retirement etc. whilst my idea of humour is not well recieved and a bit muddled and eccentric my point is more that sterotypes often fit. I just think that its unfair that the battle the eomens game go through just tk do something they love that weve taken for granted. We sit there as a fanbase and say we sont turn up, tear up our season tickets and whatever because of the state of things when it isnt si bad snd the womens team would die for their teammates to get to play in front of 10k each week, be paid 5k a week and experience the highs we have.

I have a daughter whose madly into her football but she doesn't really get to play at school like the boys do. The mk dons youth teams play at the stadium in front of small crowds why cant the womens team? Its viewed as a seperate entity, same name but completely different ownership model. Wheres the funding for them? Look st what wrexham are doing to fund their girls. I will continue to revert back to look at wrexham because they are doinv what we should have been or should be doing. How much would it really cost the board tk fund a semi pro team? Not much in the grand scheme of things. Wheres the ambition and equality tk grow our mk dons ladies?

Out of interest, who are you referring to here?

Also, why is she trying to break into the men's game after retirement and not the women's game? Surely the best way to continue to build the womens game is to have former pros continue in the sport as pundits etc.?

Every sport / version of it would love to have the global appeal and huge fanbase of men's football! Just like every music group would love to be as big as The Beatles, and every TV show and film would love huge viewing figures, etc.

But it's not something you demand or get given as a right - it's something that's gained out of enough genuine interest and amongst competition with many others who also want that. The men's game started out as working class factory workers with no existing support, league structure, grounds, etc. It became what it has over time out of people being a lot more interested in it than in all other sports - sports that would also dearly love to have that level of fan and media interest but still have nowhere near it well over a century later!

I've no doubt the women's game would love that as well - but it's about putting the time in to build a genuine interest level and fan base, not just expecting it to be miraculously gifted overnight. As I said, its a tough battle amongst many sports and forms of entertainment for fans, airtime, viewing figures, etc. They're all as much 'deserving' and it's just a matter of genuine interest, supply and demand, etc. That's what decides what thrives and survives. What people have a genuine interest in, they'll invest time and money to follow. What they haven't, they won't. You can't start accusing people of all kinds of things just because they don't share the same interest in a version of a sport that you do!

Well the content of this thread took an unexpected turn. Another entertaining read

Certainly didn't expect it to go down this road.

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For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.

Well that escalated and took a turn I wasnt expecting.

For me, I dont think its so much where womens football is now but more where it came from.

The growth and exposure has grown enormously in a very short space of time and that can only be a good thing. Moving to professional was a massive first step and whats really important is that the league, teams, tv all work together to build on this. Its a tough competitive market and they are competing for 'customers' against a well established and deeply protective version of the game. It can be done though and thats through investment, infrastructure and improvement.

The section will most likely never match the top end of the mens pyramid (in this country anyway) but there again across europe and the world a lot of leagues, mens or otherwise dont manage that.

For me, the single biggest dis-service for the womens game is the over praise of mediocre. Whenever I watch, I hear the commentators waxing lyrically about a bog standard cross or pass, a regulation save or sometimes a completely unintended action. A good example is Mary Earps. One of if not the best current GK given an MBE for basically a penalty save that was regulation and one you will see every weekend in the any version of the game. Just for context, Peter Shilton was given the same honour at the same ceremony after representing his country for 125 matches and I think but would need to check a record number of career appearances. There is no equivalence between the two.

Ironically, i dont believe the players, managers and clubs really want this. I think they want to be judged to a higher standard in order to reach a higher standard.

In 5 years the womens game will hopefully have grown at an exponential rate as that what it deserves.

I think this is a very good point. IMO the reason attitudes towards women's football are so polarised is because of the media coverage going OTT about it. That's not the fault of the players and teams involved.

I can remember Darren Ambrose on TalkSport once saying: "If you don't like women's football, you don't like football." What is that going to do, other than piss people off? Trying to force people to like something, and accusing them of being whatever if they don't, will ultimately do more harm than good.

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"While I'm worth, the room on this earth..."

If this is a serious post... it's absolutely bonkers.

If this is a humorous post... it's absolutely bonkers.

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"While I'm worth, the room on this earth..."

Watching women's football is like watching a non League side against a Premier League side.

I remember watching Marine play Tottenham a few years ago and Dion Dublin oooh'd and ahhh'd at a long range shot that hit the bar like it was a complete football novice who'd never played the game before, you get that every game for pretty routine stuff

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"It's not about hoping this little moment will change our momentum, its about our daily actions and courage in everything we do.. We've got to stop believing in fairytales"

- Graham Alexander, October 2023

I think the WSL is much more competitive than it was with less 'Dog and Duck' type results although they still happen ( Thats also true in the EPL). Thats a good sign that standards are rising.

The league structures very similarly to the mens game in that there are more or less 3 leagues in one and the gap between the womens championship and the WSL is huge.

So the model and the structure look familiar and give a good platform for standards to rise