Long before the Lionesses’ summer of glory, a raft of hockey players were already inspiring England’s women footballers to dream big.
On a Sunday where the platform was given for England’s women teams to shine, their hockey players did just that to stun overwhelming favourites Australia and win their first ever Commonwealth Games gold.
Flora Peel was the creator of both of England’s goals – scored by Holly Hunt and then Tess Howard in the second quarter – as England then produced a rearguard action to keep the Australians at bay.
Peel, a direct descendant of the former Prime Minister Robert Peel, said in the haze of the gold that already the messages were coming thick and fast from the Lionesses.
The newcomer to the England hockey set-up back in January said: “We had messages from the Lionesses who said that previous groups of ours had inspired them and they hoped they had done the same for us. They definitely have. It wasn’t quite as long to come home but we’re glad it did.”
The inspiration in question was Britain’s gold in the women’s hockey at the Rio Olympics back in 2016, which dramatically ended on penalties.
The schedule at Birmingham 2022 was set so that the women’s hockey, netball and cricket teams all had the opportunity to go for gold on a Super Sunday. The latter two missed out on the final and subsequently medals before the hockey players struck gold.
And Peel added: “It feels like women’s sport is taking off this summer and now it’s about capitalising on those opportunities. You see what the Lionesses’ victory is going to do for them and you hope this will do something similar for us, and the netball and cricket players too even though they didn’t make their finals this time. The more women’s sport as a whole can build on this momentum the better for all of us.”
