What's going on with the women's team?

[CanuckWrexham]

Women's football is growing in this country and it's great to see so many young girls playing, my youngest daughter loves it. However, it needs to grow naturally imo and I feel, at times, it feels like its forced a little bit.

You now get main headlines on bbc football when if we're honest, there's more interest in National league football, at the moment.

I also feel they need to completely separate men and women football, like they do in every other sport. For example, I read the other day a female English player is seen as the top scorer for England, ahead of Alan Shearer. Sorry but that's bullshit, in women's football fair play, but don't compare, you can't for many reasons. You don't hear people compare Roger Federer and Serena Williams. Both should be resepected equally but never compared. Mens/Women 100 meter runners are respected equally but never compared.

Anyway, I feel R&R have done a tremendous amount of work with women's football and should be applauded for their efforts.

While there's sort of some truth to what you say, I find most men (perhaps you, perhaps not) are complete BS when it comes to this logic.

If a woman is dominant in her category, they'll say "well she's still not as strong as a man". Fine, true.

But when someone like Khabib Nurmagomedov (MMA fighter) is talked about as so dominant, I don't hear the discourse saying "for his arbitrary weight category". I'd like people to just be consistent. If people are going to knock women for being in a 'women's category' then do the same thing for other artificial groupings. If people say Khabib is a great, then women can be great as their category too and should be given similar respect. Its the same logic; grouping people by genetic differences.

 

[yannick]

There’s a load of research being done into it - they are much more common injuries in women than in men. I don’t know the science but they are more susceptible.

https://www.skysports.com/amp/footb...are-acl-injuries-so-common-in-womens-football

This article suggests more socially-rooted causes - the lack of education about biomechanics from a young age in the women's game; the fact that the sports science model is a man - that the vast majority of sports science research was done on men - and women are treated as small men and the lack of specific boots etc for women.

Future of Football: Why ACL injuries have been on rise in women's game - and the technology and solutions to fix it

Future of Football: How has the term ACL become so synonymous with womens game? What steps will be taken to tackle epidemic? Sky Sports investigates the work being undertaken to avoid a repeat of the last 18 months where an estimated 195 elite players suffered the injury

www.skysports.com

 

[yannick]

While there's sort of some truth to what you say, I find most men (perhaps you, perhaps not) are complete BS when it comes to this logic.

If a woman is dominant in her category, they'll say "well she's still not as strong as a man". Fine, true.

But when someone like Khabib Nurmagomedov (MMA fighter) is talked about as so dominant, I don't hear the discourse saying "for his arbitrary weight category". I'd like people to just be consistent. If people are going to knock women for being in a 'women's category' then do the same thing for other artificial groupings. If people say Khabib is a great, then women can be great as their category too and should be given similar respect. Its the same logic; grouping people by genetic differences.

Even in football we compare incomparables all the time. Was Messi better than Pele? Was Bale better than Charles? Scoring records are meaningless cos internationals today play so much more football than internationals of the 1950s and 60s. And how can you compare Wayne Hennessey and Chris Gunters' 103 caps when being in goal is completely different to being an outfielder.

 

[podders]

Don't want to derail the chat too much but got a question about woman's football

When watching sky sports news over course of season, iv always thought there is an extremely high number of ACL injuries reported for woman's football

Is it a case of woman's knees can't take the strain as much as fellas?
Is there a higher amount of woman's games played on 3g surfaces too rather than grass that can add to it

Women are 2-6 times more likely to get an ACL injury. There is a three year study looking into the reasons that started in April.

Issues such as boots and socks aren't designed for women's body shapes. From looking for my daughter's there is one Nike boot and one Kipsta boot designed for female feet shapes.

The pitches and facilities used by women and girls teams are usually lower quality than the men's. Again this is something that's obvious even down at u8s grassroots football in my area.

Suggestions that changes in hormone levels during the menstural cycle has an impact, but there hasn't yet been a study to determine if it's a positive or negative impact.

Probably shouldn't overlook that most female pro/semi-pro footballers now had to play with the boys when they where growing up. Only in the last 4 years had there been enough football teams for girls.

 

[MJ6987]

Sadly I don’t think that many people care about the women's team - what are the attendances when they play at the Rock? From the documentary it looks like not many - a few kids, mainly girls and their parents, the players' families. Don’t hear much talk about their games, etc. I’m not sure it will ever really go anywhere, not in the Welsh league at least.

 

[dixienormous]

Sadly I don’t think that many people care about the women's team - what are the attendances when they play at the Rock? From the documentary it looks like not many - a few kids, mainly girls and their parents, the players' families. Don’t hear much talk about their games, etc. I’m not sure it will ever really go anywhere, not in the Welsh league at least.

Around 500 I think, not bad to be fair.

 

[Wrexham Can]

Around 500 I think, not bad to be fair.

That's comparable to Northern Premier League and lower NL. Not bad at all

 

[t1954]

Around 500 I think, not bad to be fair.

It is not. However if they played one or two matches at the Racecourse, the likes of Swansea and Cardiff for example I could see that increasing about 4 times, if not more. People will not go out to Cefn for a match but I think they would take a walk from the middle of Wrexham to give them support. They are missing out on increased support.

 

[MJ6987]

Around 500 I think, not bad to be fair.

Really? Doesn’t look that many. Still doesn’t seem sustainable for a semi-professional team - how much do the tickets go for?

 

[the_holt_dragon]

Sadly I don’t think that many people care about the women's team - what are the attendances when they play at the Rock? From the documentary it looks like not many - a few kids, mainly girls and their parents, the players' families. Don’t hear much talk about their games, etc. I’m not sure it will ever really go anywhere, not in the Welsh league at least.

I guess it depends how you define “don’t care”. These things have to start somewhere and I think some people have unrealistic expectations in terms of speed of development. I see this as something that will develop gradually over years and not months.

I think however instead of stressing that we aren’t yet at the level of a WSL team , focus on the progress we have made . 5 years ago I didn’t know a single player who had ever played for the team and wouldn’t have considered streaming a game. The attendances don’t seem out of line with men’s semi professional football to me.