Gripped in the pocket of my Adidas joggers was a little stack of stickers with an elastic band around it. Flicking down the edge of the bundle with my finger I would glance at the huddle of boys trading the hottest commodity in the playground with a nervousness that was enough to hold me back from even trying to join in.
I could play football, sure, that was the easy part, but could I talk their talk, did I know football? Of course I did. I watched it, I played it, I read the back pages, but it never felt like I belonged. And so, my little stack of swaps remained unswapped, shinies unshared, and my pocket money was depleted week on week as I spent it desperately trying to accrue my missing targets, never completing a book.
When I wanted little gold cannon earrings? I had to spend double, buying two from the Arsenal store as they were only sold individually for boys and men. When I wanted a shirt? It was a boys’ small, boys’ medium or boys’ large shirt that fitted awkwardly on the hips as I edged towards puberty. When I wanted to play Fifa 97? I played as the Arsenal men’s team. As a girl, I was excluded from the culture of football as much as I was from playing it.
Imagine, then, what it feels like today. Last year, I held the first Women’s Super League Panini sticker album in my hands, at the age of 38, with the biggest of grins and worked on completing the album with my then 10-year-old son, trading with his mates, their parents and in press boxes up and down the country. I have built Ultimate Teams stacked with women’s players on EA FC. I have a pair of gold cannon studs sold as a pair. I attended an event to showcase the inclusion of women’s football in Football Manager for the first time. I own an Aitana Bonmatí-autographed Topps trading card.
The expansion and promotion of women’s football into football’s cultural spaces cannot be overestimated. It has the power to influence the way women’s football is viewed by men and women, and how female fans feel. It plays a vital role in normalising women’s football in the game’s ecosystem.
The second WSL Panini sticker album launches in late November and the rollout will be bigger than last year. “We knew it was going to do well because we knew there was this pent-up demand by the time it launched, but we hadn’t realised the extent of it,” says Panini’s sports head of marketing, Katie Gritt. “The shelves were being cleared every time we pushed out stock. We’re talking millions of packets, not a few.”
That demonstrates how quickly the space is growing, but also how desperate women’s football fans are to back those who back it. There is a consciousness there in the consumer, an awareness that if they buy, more products will be produced and that helps grow investment in the game.
“Women’s football supporters are a dedicated crowd, very loyal to their clubs and will definitely spend money on collecting memorabilia,” says Tara Knight, co-founder of She Scores Cards, a company dedicated to buying and selling women’s trading cards. “Whether that’s shirts, cards, scarves, anything. There’s definitely the demand there. When Topps [trading cards] release their women’s products and they’re sold out within a couple of hours, it’s recognised that there’s value in them and people do want to collect them.”
There is also a thirst for information, which isn’t being met, Gritt says: “Having the album full of editorial and stats gives them something else to engage with. They’re desperate for that and for other brands there’s a huge opportunity to come in and cater for that demand.”
I stumbled across She Scores Cards by chance. I was at the London Card Show with my son so he could pick up some Pokémon cards. It was my second time there and I was consciously keeping an eye out for the presence of women’s cards among the sports offerings, a signed Vivianne Miedema here, a Catarina Macario there, often in the corner, surrounded by higher-priced men’s cards.
Suddenly, every card on the next table was a women’s card and I got chatting to the two women running it. They were doing as good a trade as many around them and have been welcomed by the London Card Show and the other vendors for their unique offering. Knight and Sam Pucci started as collectors and were frustrated with how hard it was to find women’s cards. “It is a hobby,” says Knight. “We both work full time, so it is something that we are doing in our spare time.”
It’s not just people wanting to collect women’s cards that are taking an interest, it’s collectors of men’s cards too. Those who focus on collecting a particular team, for example Chelsea, now want to add a Sam Kerr or a Millie Bright to their collection.
So much of the culture around women’s football has developed naturally, as companies entering the space are finding out. “There was so much going on organically on match days and in different Facebook groups and this whole community just boomed,” says Gritt. “Groups exist on the men’s side too, but you don’t see that same level of interaction at the grounds as I think we have seen in the WSL.”
The demographic is different too. “There’s a teen audience, which is maybe reflective of them not having it when they were younger” says Gritt. “We don’t often see that on the men’s side, six to 11 is your core age, then you lose them through secondary and then they tend to come back in as adults and collect again. Engaging boys in the WSL collection matters too. Showing them who these players are, what their stats are and what they’re capable of is hugely important, because they will grow up as advocates and supporters of the women’s game.”
Every company that starts to operate in women’s football is surprised by the commitment of the fans, but they shouldn’t be. We’ve gone without for so long, any offering is pounced on.
