*Saoirse Ronan dot gif* Women
*Saoirse Ronan dot gif* Women
50th Issue on Revue!!!
Kick Off
With The Men off on their little jollies abroad it falls to The Women to provide the core of our football entertainment this week.
It kicked off on Saturday with the North London Derby at the Emirates Stadium and... I was there!
Yes, I made it to a football game and man it was brilliant. I don't know what I was expecting, having been to a couple of big grounds already this year, but it was one of the easiest, most seamless entries into a ground I've yet experienced.
I was also taken aback by the emotion I felt walking in and seeing the pitch for the first time, it was a genuine rush.
And it's well known that Arsenal have an incredible pitch but god it's beautiful in the flesh, just really stunning.
Much has been and will be written about the attendance, the demographic of the crowd, what this means going forward etc. etc. but from a fan point of view it was simply a wonderful, exhilarating experience.
As I've said I was already emotional when I went in but there's a beautiful anti-discrimination film shown before the kick off of both halves and there was also a lovely tribute to Maria Petri which made me cry big plopping tears.
As for the game itself, Arsenal were dominant from the off, with Beth Mead scoring after just four minutes. After that the play was barely out of Spurs's half, with Spurs finding it impossible to get and retain possession, despite the efforts of Ashleigh Neville who was a machine down the right. There was a second goal just before half time from Vivianne Miedema leaving Arsenal 2-0 up going into the break.
After half time Spurs seemed to up their game a little bit, with a few more forays into Arsenal's half although the efforts came to nothing.
There was another (reasonably) quick goal when Rafaelle scored from a set piece after 54 minutes, after which the game settled a little with Spurs getting more of the ball but still not really being able to do anything with it.
Viv got her second goal on 68 minutes and that was that. A fifth would have been great but it didn't happen.
Other notable moments included Beth Mead getting a standing ovation when she was subbed after 74 minutes and made her way from the far side "easiest exit" point and jogged around the edge of the pitch to the dugout. Seeing the applause ripple around the ground as it followed her was really something. It was also lovely to see Rafaelle get a similar reception when she went off injured towards the end of the game.
After the final whistle the staples of Freed From Desire and Sweet Caroline rang out in the stadium as the team did a lap of honour and it really was just fantastic to be part of it. I can't wait for the next game, against Manchester United, in November.
In the other Saturday fixture Brighton recovered from their opening day loss, beating Reading 2-1, narrowly missing out on a clean sheet after a 90+4 goal from Reading.
Then on Sunday the match day started with a win for Manchester United against West Ham, with two quickfire second half goals from Lucia Garcia and Hannah Blundell. Villa also kept up their momentum with Rachel Daly again on the score sheet (this time via an early penalty) and Emily Gielnik sealing it on the 86th minute.
The big ticket matches of the day however were Champions Chelsea, hoping to avenge their opening day defeat to newly promoted Liverpool by beating Manchester City and Liverpool themselves, hosting the Merseyside Derby at Anfield.
I missed the first half of the action at Kingsmeadow but suffice to say, Chelsea were BACK. A first half goal from Fran Kirby, a couple of minutes before half time began things and then in the second half they continued their dominance of a pretty lacklustre City side and sealed their victory with a penalty scored by Maren Mjelde.
All reports suggest that Lauren James was utterly fantastic in that game, however the real act she perpetrated was to get into my good books by being one of the few Low Sock Queens of the WSL. A perfect addition to the Low Sock kingdom imo.
The final game of the day was the Merseyside Derby at Anfield between Liverpool and Everton.
After Liverpool's shock win against Chelsea last week there was an expectation perhaps that this was going to be an exciting, hard fought match. What it turned out to be was an Everton masterclass.
Unfortunately Liverpool just couldn't bring it on this occasion and were outplayed on every area of the pitch by the Blues.
Megan Finnigan opened the scoring after nine minutes and this was followed on the 33rd by a glorious, calm goal from Jess Park. It felt like possibly the Liverpool defence could have done better but it was so composed and determined. A great goal.
And with a third goal from Hanna Bennison to seal the win that was it for the weekend of WSL. But don't despair! There are two catch up games from the cancelled first weekend this week, Chelsea v. West Ham on Wednesday at 19:05 (live on BBC2) and then Everton v. Leicester City at 18:45 on Thursday which will be on the FA Player.
As an aside, there have been some men's games this week but the ones I watched, was able to watch more importantly, were hardly worth writing home about. England were woeful against Italy and I anticipate nothing less against Germany tonight and Wales were barely better against Belgium and Poland (though at least they managed a goal against Belgium).
So we leave this week with North London red and Merseyside Blue. Next week we find out whether Arsenal Men can keep North London the right colour and whether Manchester will be red or blue. We'll also have all the European leagues back!
Half Time
Maybe calling a section 'Half Time' should mean speaking about fun stuff or including funny tweets or whatever, much like I do in the Full Time part, but it seems to have become a small place in which I take Football to task for its many inequalities and bad behaviours.
I'll be brief this week but I want to quickly touch on older male journalists/pundits showing their arses this week. There have been four examples I can think of, two committed by the same person no less (who isn't even that old, he's only three years older than me). Should you wish to avoid any kind of quote unquote discourse, please feel free to skip this bit!
Firstly let's talk about Guardian sports journalists. We know what the Guardian is. They barely even hide their transphobia these days and one of those we know to be on this side of things is Sean Ingle.
I don't normally read anything he writes and in one case, perhaps unwisely as we all like to have all the facts don't we, I only read the pertinent screenshots but he's twice this week written some absolute trash concerning football and equality.
Firstly, he chose to quote 3 Lions Pride, Stonewall and the LGB Alliance in the same article. One of those should never be deferred to in matters of queer safety. Two of those have been in court against each other. The third (3 Lions) is an inclusive LGBTQIA+ fan group run by a number of people including the brilliant Joey White, who is non-binary. Joey gave quotes for the piece (about going to Qatar if you're a queer/gender non-conforming fan), confirmed their gender and was belligerently misgendered as 'he' by Ingle. This is just bad journalism, it's rude and it's unnecessary.
In the second instance he wrote about the North London derby and the record attendance.
This second quote is the real kicker. Because of course the audience for the women's game is families. It's certainly not hardcore supporters of a club who want to back every team in their club. It's not the young, child free men, women and non-binary folk who love the game and maybe find women's games more welcoming than men's. It's not even the child-free newsletter writer in her 40s who feels like it's a kinder, less gate-kept environment. No, it's women and children. This is of course classic GC/Terf rhetoric, borrowing from the alt-right/white nationlist concept of the tradwife.
In addition, why shouldn't a women's game have a spiky edge? It's pathetic and the media needs to sort their act out and get the right people to write about the game properly.
Sticking with Guardian journalists, the weekend also saw stalwart Barry Glendenning having a pop at several Twitter users for no apparent reason. He started by replying to a perfectly innocent tweet about someone's anxiety with a somewhat aggressive request for information, which was duly supplied. When he was called out for not replying to say thanks or even acknowledge the sensitivity of the reply given he flipped and started insulting everyone on the thread.
Today we've seen France and Bayern defender Benjamin Pavard open up about his struggles with depression and he's certainly not the only footballer to talk about their mental health difficulties, so to have someone who could be writing about this prove themselves to be so insensitive and lacking in compassion or sympathy is really disappointing, though of course, sadly not wholly surprising.
Finally, I have to touch on Mark Lawrenson's stupid comments about being sacked from the BBC because he was a 65 year old white male.
Now I can't deny those factors may have played a part, but not necessarily in the way Mark wants to believe. Instead they meant he was insular, grumpy and sounded like every time he was working it was a chore. There has never been anyone more dour nor miserable than Lawro.
Anyway, that possibly wasn't as short as I wanted but I needed to have a yell and get it off my chest.
Thirst Trap
And relax! Better content is ahead...
I’ve mentioned it before and I’m damn well going to mention it again, this is a bisexual newsletter so the Thirst Trap, though extremely male dominated, does occasionally include a favourite player from the women’s game.
As this week saw both the dominance of the WSL and Bisexual Awareness Week it’s time to introduce another of my WSL crushes. And boy is it a big one.
What is there to say about Arsenal’s Rafaelle? For it is she. I mean look at her. She’s gorgeous, beautiful, a great player, she seems lovely and I just wanna [redacted]. I’m utterly smitten.
Merch Stand
It's not Merch per se, more "Lifestyle", but it's delightful to see that the BBC are keeping up their glamorous co-ordinated panels from the Euros for the WSL. I really love it!
Also not really merch but I've been asked [threatened] to mention the trainers I was wearing on Saturday so here they are. They're Adidas Rich Mnisi Astir's and they're so great.
In actual Merch news, after releasing a number of dogshit shirts recently, it's great to see that occasionally Nike can pull it out of the bag with this stunning Korea shirt. It's just beautiful, I wish they'd take a risk like this one day with the England kit.
Finally, No Score Draws' book is finally out this week! They're great on Twitter and lovely people so I can't recommend it highly enough. Even if you don't want it I'm sure someone you know will!
Full Time
I tweeted this piece by Seb Stafford-Bloor, ostensibly about the Revierderby (Dortmund/Schalke), on the day it came out, but it really is a piece of such astonishing beauty and heartbreak it's worth repeating here. There's a line approximately 1/3 of the way through that stopped me in my tracks and while I was expecting emotion, nothing prepared me for what came after it.
You have, by now, I hope, seen the new Stormzy video, Mel Made Me Do It. Not only is it a true masterpiece and rich and sumptuous and powerful it has two incredible football cameos (among many many others) and uses football references throughout so it deserves its place here.
I forgot to mention this last week as his formal announcement happened some time ago but this interview with newly out Scottish player Zander Murray is wonderful. I feel like we're moving ever closer to a current player in one of the higher professional leagues coming out. And what an empowering, brave and wonderful moment it will be when he does.
On a similar note, this Beth Mead interview is also wonderful and moving and powerful. The whole half hour show was lovely too so if you can track it down on Sky or NOW I really recommend it.
This interview with Eric Cantona is superb. It's exactly as Cantona as you want and expect it to be. Well worth a read.
Another great interview is this one with Jill Scott. She's a true legend of the game and was brilliant as a pundit on Sky yesterday.
There was of course women's football in Europe this weekend as well and Mapi León scored this banger
My boy bringing it
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