Pioneering reporter was a Wembley witness to both Alf Ramsey’s World Cup winners and a stunning Euro 2022 victory
we took in the Euro 2009 final in Helsinki. By that time I had become accustomed to such defeats. The first against Germany I witnessed, a 3-0 reversal, had come in the group stage of the 2001 Euro finals.
As someone relatively new to the women’s game at the time that tournament was not just a great experience, it also blew away any reluctance I had previously felt about reporting on it. I admit to having not been particularly happy at being despatched to my first England Women’s fixture, against France at Yeovil in September 1999. I knew nothing about women’s football and had no great desire to learn.
But I quickly found myself enjoying it and, with much greater access to the team and management than is the case today, work became a pleasure and friendships were formed that are still standing today – it was a delight to have a beer withKaren Carney, then aged 17, wheels away in celebration after scoring the decisive goal in a 3-2 victory over Finland at Euro 2005.
Hope Powell, pictured in 2005, is perhaps the most influential person in English women’s football in the last quarter of a century.A handful of journalists, myself included, were doing likewise although persuading sports editors to take stories was more often than not a difficult ask and the press boxes for those games could be lonely places. I covered 180 England matches in 32 different countries and rarely, outside major tournaments, saw anything like a full quota in attendance.
Well Suzy, there were no lion roars from me this time. I just stood there with a catch in my throat, gazing through tear-filled eyes around the stadium, taking in the on-field celebrations but also staring in wonderment at the crowd: 87,192 – for an England women’s match! I never thought I’d see the day. But it had to be.
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