I've not watched it but everyone is saying it was marvellous but I have to say - doesn't it show how USELESS women are at football? Missing, hitting the post, being saved, missing saves? Come on WYOT, defend your bimbos.

it's as fast paced as any men's game, hair a'flying and arms a'waving.
I've enjoyed the matches.

I've now watched it and they were, indeed, dreadful. Made Gareth Southgate look like Christiano Ronaldo.

JK2006 wrote:


Come on WYOT, defend your bimbos.

The best form of defence, as the indomitable Milly Bright of Chelsea and England is aware, is attack!

So, from what am I defending the ladies of football?

From not being as "good" as the men? I doubt you would make such a banal point JK. Able-bodied men can beat women in all sports. This has not led women's tennis or athletics to be vilified. Nor the female body to be cited as a fundamentally inappropriate vessel for the pursuit of a sport.

On the same logic not disabled athletes either; who if I recall correctly you admired in the Olympics JK?

If we apply this logic we would only ever watch a handful of teams play one another; sport would be reduced in the case of football to only The Champions League or World Cup from Semi-Final stage. Only the money-men and sport-illiterate would champion this.

So it must be the "female-ness" that females bring to football that grates? I recall JK references to flying pony tails and screeching behaviours (the latter a bone of
contention for many men watching ladies play tennis and growing peturbed in the process).

True females will be females, as eagles will be eagles. And this is where we part.

The very female-ness females bring to football is a matter of celebration. True that penalty shoot out was no advertisement for the art of striking a football. The ladies did not bring a manly steel to the psychology or execution of the penalty art.

But we should ask ourselves what they do bring? They bring a set of the best in their field to compete against one another, the definition and only sensible messure of top class sport.

Let us examine the charge that ladies have biological attributes more suited to a netball court - namely breasts and slender child bearing hips - around. We all, whether in sport or life, "play" against our limitations. Strive for the impossible knowing it is impossible. The perfect football performance, or pop song, or relationship.

Breasts, slender child bearing hips and visceral grunting and screeching are affirmations of why we play sport, why we strive. Breasts and slender child bearing hips (here the author pauses for a glass of water...) are to be feted. They are a reason to watch this sport. This festival of life.

And if in the course of a game a false nail or two snaps off, pony tails flounce or an open goal is missed, well so be it.

So I invite you JK, and any other stern-eyed men disapproving of female-ness in their sports, to watch the Lionesses on Wednesday evening, with a beer and hot dog offering balm to your grumpiness, and cheer the ladies on to a World Cup Final; to achieve what the men, with all their lumpen football male-ness, have been unable to for decades.

Viva la difference!

Very well put WYOT and, as a result, I shall watch on Weds but may skip the beer and hot dog.

JK2006 wrote:
Very well put WYOT and, as a result, I shall watch on Weds but may skip the beer and hot dog.

Jolly good and I hope you enjoy the match!

Just to correct my post for the interested - the Lionesses next kick off at 11am (UK time) not the evening as stated.

I would never advise beer or hot dogs to be consumed at 11am. This would lead to a sluggish day and risk alcoholism....