How the Lionesses can change the lives of England’s daughters

On Sunday night, when 24-year-old Chloe Kelly scored the winning goal for England against Germany at Wembley, crowds roared, hearts burst – and young girls all over the country realised that they too could play football. Not just for their village team, as increasing numbers of them are starting to do, but in front of sold-out stadiums.

My own daughters, now aged nine and 12, have been playing since 2019, when a few local parents noticed all the boys’ teams playing at our local park and decided to set up a girls’ team too. What started off as a handful of girls kicking a ball around for the first time has grown into six strong and talented teams, with one in division two of the Surrey County Womens & Girls Football League.

Both of my daughters now play for their village team and their school team, and train with a football academy once a week, racking up five-and-a-half hours of football time each. It’s a huge commitment for us parents, who drive them between training sessions, matches and tournaments, all over the south-east, often spending drizzly Saturday mornings on the side of a muddy football pitch. Earlier this year, both were in back-to-back tournaments, and I spent eight hours standing in a field watching them play.

Would I change any of this? Not for the world. The life skills footballing has given these girls are immeasurable. For a start: responsibility, resilience and confidence. Both are naturally shy – the types to feel self-conscious during a school play – but that timidity magically disappears on the pitch when all eyes are on them, as they take a crucial penalty or try to save a goal. They’ve learnt to be part of a team, too. In our child-centric, over-parenting age, where many of us hold our own children in the highest regard, it’s humbling for them to realise they’re not above being substituted or (gently) yelled at by their coach or teammates when they should be trying harder.

They’ve learnt how to win, and lose, graciously; to take time out from celebrating their own victory to support a team they’ve just beaten; to shake hands with one that has thrashed them. And for my eldest daughter, at an age when social media seems to tighten its grip on young girls, football has shifted her focus from worrying about what she looks like to scoring goals and making her teammates and coach proud.

None of this has ever felt more crucial. In February, a study of 15,000 schoolchildren by an education consultancy found a happiness divide growing between girls and boys, with girls more than twice as likely to suffer mental health problems by the age of 18. In March, experts at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge found that girls experience a negative link between social-media use and life satisfaction earlier than boys. Then, in June, Diabetes UK found that 40 per cent of children in the UK are overweight or obese, affecting one in seven when they start primary school, rising to one in four by the age of 11.

When The Telegraph launched its “Girls, Inspired” campaign in 2019, in a bid to close the gender fitness gap in schools, it found that just 8 per cent of girls aged between 11 and 18 were doing the recommended daily hour of activity, compared with 16 per cent of boys. Millions of UK girls were falling off a fitness cliff after primary school. Prior to this, Sport England’s 2015 “This Girl Can” campaign found that girls as young as seven felt too self-conscious to take up sport.

One parent whose daughter plays with my elder one told me: “I was the mother of that child who never wanted to join any sort of club. After years of battling, I let her be. Then aged 10, she was asked if she fancied giving football a go for the local girls’ team. She was a little hesitant, but to my surprise said yes.

“Two years on, I see a different girl. One who is confident, who overcomes her crippling anxiety to step onto the pitch … I have watched my daughter soak up the Women’s Euros and see role models that are like her.”

But the excitement felt at the Lionesses’ victory must lead to change when these girls head back to school. Ahead of Sunday’s game, the commentator and ex-player Ian Wright, who has been invested in women’s football for some time, said: “Whatever happens in the final now, if girls are not allowed to play football in their PE [lessons] – just like boys can – what are we doing? We have got to make sure they are able to play and get the opportunity to do so. If there’s no legacy to this – like with the Olympics – then what are we doing? As this is as proud as I’ve ever felt of any England side.”

He has a point. In the UK, only 63 per cent of schools offer girls the chance in PE to play football as much as boys, with that figure falling to 44 per cent in secondary schools. It’s a different story in America, where football is seen as a unisex sport and most girls grow up playing soccer (as they call it) in schools and well into college: in 2008, 48 per cent of registered youth soccer players were female.

Part of this can be attributed to Team USA’s success over the past 25 years. Yet as Caitlin Murray, a sports journalist for The New York Times and ESPN, put it after their third World Cup victory in 2015: “Americans don’t have antiquated and long-held views about women playing soccer the way countries with long footballing histories do. We’re not entrenched in the idea that soccer is a man’s sport.”

Seven years on, it seems that, at last, neither are we. The Government is pledging £230 million for 8,000 new pitches by 2025, and promising that 90 per cent of schools will give equal access to football by 2024. The FA has also said it hopes that by 2024, 75 per cent of grassroots clubs will offer at least one girls’ team.

This is good news, according to former England player and BBC host Alex Scott – as long as it doesn’t leave the game less socially diverse. “The women’s game has grown and cages [concrete pitches on council estates] aren’t as important any more,” she said during the tournament. (Scott was discovered at the age of eight, playing in one such cage in east London, by Vic Akers, then the Arsenal Ladies manager.)

“Instead, all these academies have appeared that are two hours away, and an inner-city kid doesn’t have the financial means to access them.” When I spoke to her ahead of the final, she added: “They took city centres of excellence and moved them to leafy areas, which made it harder for girls from cities, or single-parent families. [But] the FA has now addressed this. Football gave me, a girl from a council estate in the East End, a whole new world. It’s given me everything I have in my life, and I want other girls to have the same opportunities.’

Or as Alex’s co-presenter Gabby Logan put it, when wrapping up the coverage on Sunday night: “You think it’s all over? It’s only just begun.”