When Rachel Yankey was eight years old, she shaved off her hair and masqueraded as ‘Roy’.
Why? Simply because she wanted to play football, and only boys’ teams existed. Thirty years later, she has won eight league titles, nine FA Cups and a UEFA Cup with Arsenal, as well as another league title and two more FA Cups with Fulham. Maybe you haven’t heard of her but, to many football-loving girls, she has been an inspiration.
Among them is Spurs star Renee Hector, 23, who was hugely influenced by Yankey growing up. ‘I watched the Arsenal women’s team a lot as a kid and I remember getting Rachel’s autograph,’ she says. ‘That’s why I love it when girls — and boys, too — are excited to meet and get a picture with me now. Because that was me once.’ The Fifa Women’s World Cup kicks off in two weeks, and our women’s national football team is already ranked third in the world. With a squad recently announced by Prince William and David Beckham, full BBC coverage of all matches and a huge Boots sponsorship deal, this could be the Lionesses’ year.
Six of this year’s 23-strong squad are from London teams, including prized Arsenal forward Beth Mead. This month, her team won the Women’s Super League, the highest division of women’s football in England, equivalent to the men’s Premier League. But this is where the huge disparity between men’s and women’s football is thrown into sharp focus. Players in the men’s Premier League are paid £2.64m on average, while Women’s Super League players receive an average annual salary of £26,752. You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out that’s nearly 100 times less. The comparative lack of revenue, from TV rights to sponsorship deals, means that most clubs can’t afford to pay full-time contracts to female footballers. Many players, even those in the Super League like Hector, have second jobs; some have to give up the game altogether.
Identical twins Rosie and Mollie Kmita, 25, grew up playing together. They played on the Tottenham team for six years, before Rosie signed her first fully professional contract with West Ham this season. Mollie is now a coach with the Pro:Direct Academies. Working together meant the sisters were able to support each other, which is important because money is not the only reason that young women drop out of the game: abuse from those refusing to take female players seriously is rife. West Ham left-back Claire Rafferty is passionate about stopping bullying of girls who want to play football. ‘A lot of talent gets lost because of it,’ she explains. What needs to change in order for there to be equality? ‘To be honest, everything: pay, grass-roots level help, media coverage — it all goes hand in hand.’
“The regular boys we played with put me and Mollie as captains every time, because they knew we were the best players”
But change is coming. In 2014, Yankey, now 39, received an OBE for services to football, and next month she will be one of the first women to take part in the charity match Soccer Aid. Elsewhere, Twitter is using its #WomenInFootball and #WhatIf campaigns to question the possibilities for female players if they were given the same backing that men routinely receive. England women’s team head coach, Phil Neville, has called on clubs such as Chelsea and Arsenal to open up their stadiums for women’s matches, confident the crowds will follow. Women’s success on the Continent backs him up: this spring, a women’s world record crowd of 60,739 watched Atlético Madrid against Barcelona. In the UK, more than 2.2 million people tuned in to watch Manchester City be crowned Women’s FA Cup champions earlier this month.
All of this means that ticket prices, which have so far been significantly lower than for the men’s game, could be set to rise. And while there remains a long way to go before we see true equality in football, thanks to these women, we’re heading in the right direction.
Beth Mead, Arsenal
Mead began her career on a small field in her home village of Hinderwell, North Yorkshire, surrounded by boys. Then she moved to Middlesbrough and was playing with lads she hadn’t grown up with. ‘They would laugh at me when I came on the pitch. But by the end of it, parents were coming over to tell me I’d put their boys to shame.’ The 24-year-old has just been picked for this year’s Fifa World Cup squad; this summer’s mission is to ‘make it impossible for Phil (Neville) to keep me out of the starting 11’. Given that she was part of the Arsenal team that just won the Women’s Super League trophy, we’re pretty sure she’ll pull it off.
Claire Rafferty, West Ham
Orpington-born Rafferty grew up ‘literally surrounded by footballs’, with an extended family of huge Liverpool FC fans who all supported her childhood love of the sport. But when the 30-year-old started playing, visibility of the women’s game was so low that she ‘didn’t know there was even an option to be a professional player’. The West Ham left-back has caught up now, having been part of the team that reached the 2012 Olympics and came third at the 2015 Fifa World Cup.
Rosie Kmita, West Ham
There must have been something in the water when Kmita and her equally football-crazed twin sister, Mollie, were born. Early role models were Michael Owen and Ashley Cole, whom Kmita describes as having a ‘lovely left foot’. Childhood games proved a fertile learning ground. ‘The regular boys we played with put me and Mollie as captains every time, because they knew we were the best players,’ says the West Ham forward. ‘But we had to re-earn the respect every time a new lad came along.’ What does she wish she could change about the game now? ‘Grounds and match times should be closer for male and female teams, so fans can support both more easily.’
Renee Hector, Tottenham
The Spurs defender’s cheery confidence about being ‘super competitive, I want to win any game, even if it’s Monopoly’ can be put down not to growing up in a sporty family, but rather in a performing one. Her older sister was on The X Factor a few years ago, and her mum’s cousin is Carol Decker of T’Pau. Hector, 23, still plays part-time, so her main ambition is ‘to get a full-time contract, to make football my job for life’. But it’s not just the winning that she relishes. She has been doing community work with Spurs, coaching local pupils, disabled children and even working with a ‘walking football’ team of over-50 women. ‘They’re amazing — these women didn’t know each other before, and they’re now entering their own tournaments.’
The Women’s World Cup kicks off in France on 7 June. England play Scotland on 9 June
