Do you really need balls to play football?

Becky Dickinson is a mum and a work-from-home journalist she blogs at Allotment Mum about allotments, weeds, children with snotty noses and her beloved Unhusband as they’re not married and she hasn’t got a better name …yet. Here she shares her thoughts on who should be playing football.

Since having a daughter, I have reluctantly conceded that girls may be slightly more genetically pre-disposed towards certain things than boys. D has an obsession with dolls that S never displayed – and it’s not because I’ve encouraged her to play with them. She also has a worrying inclination for pink – which I do my best to suppress. But when it comes to running around in the park, climbing, jumping, having races, digging holes, stamping on slugs, and yes, kicking balls – they share equal measures of enthusiasm and age-appropriate ability.

Like most kids, they have energy to burn, and like most mums I’m happy for them to burn it by any available means (preferably cheap and harmless ones.)  So this term, S started football.  And like a proper soccer mum I went along to the first session to support him – ie make sure he didn’t get trampled on, or unfairly red-carded.

S may not be a budding Beckham. He wore his shin pads outside his socks, he had to get the coach to tie up his laces, and I’m not even sure he knew which goal he was supposed to be aiming at.  But he loved it and wants to play every week, as long as I bring enough snacks.

The only disappointment was that in a sea of muddy five year olds, there was only one girl on the pitch. I naively assumed things had progressed since my less-than-enlightened school days, when boys played football and girls played recorder.  Apparently not.

I didn’t sign S up to football because he’s a boy. And if he shows any flair for it, I certainly won’t put it down to the balls between his legs.  I signed him up because kids need fresh air and exercise.  I’m not a football fan and don’t support a team. Nor does Unhusband (despite being both male and Italian.) But if an activity helps develop healthy, fit, happy, confident kids who know how to play as part of a team, I’m a fan.

So why aren’t girls benefiting from these opportunities too? Because Hello Kitty don’t make football kits? Because most of us couldn’t even name a famous female footballer?  I asked S for his opinion. ‘Because girls don’t like getting dirty,’ he replied.  Sadly, I think he may be unwittingly close to the mark.

From the moment they can pick up a hairbrush, girls are drip-fed messages about what it is to be a girl – that is, clean and pink and pretty. And this has little to do with genetic make-up, and everything to do with social shackles and adult attitudes.

What’s the point of equal opportunities, of allowing girls to join the football club, if they are then herded off to ballet without further question?   I’m sure ballet has its uses (eating disorders aside) but how many girls carry on with ballet past primary school, compared to the number of boys that still play football in their twenties and beyond?

Girls may be allowed to wear trousers to school, but the real world is far from a level playing field. Yes, we have a lot to thank feminism for, but women still have much to fight against – body issues, domestic abuse and the gender pay gap, for starters.

I’m not suggesting that getting five year old girls onto the football pitch, will redress all these issues, but it may be a micro step in the right direction. It may help girls realise that ‘being pretty’ isn’t what it’s all about.  It may give them the confidence to realise they can be as good as the boys in other areas of life too. And it may help boys grow into men who realise the same.

Fortunately D, despite her penchant for pink, is showing some promise. ‘When I’m big, I want to play football,’ she said, after watching her brother slide around in the mud.  I just hope she feels the same way in a few years’ time.  And I hope she shows the boys how to do it. Because one thing’s for sure, I won’t be buying her a pink tutu – not unless she wants to wear it on the pitch, anyway.

— Becky Dickinson

Find Becky on Twitter too @allotmentmum

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