In the past week, have you heard someone claiming that women’s football is rubbish? Someone perpetuating lazy stereotypes? Good news! – your Idiot Detection System is working.
Good luck to them in a scrap with Lucy Bronze.
For every knuckle-dragger, there are 10 other people who have woken up to the joys of the women’s game. Sunday’s final was the most-watched TV moment of the year so far – with 11.6 million viewers on BBC1, 4.2 million BBC streams and a further 4.2 million across ITV.
In an era of short attention spans and fragmented content habits, what a stunning show of affection for the Lionesses.
My daughters, who are nine and five, watched it with their young cousin. When Chloe Kelly scored her 110kph penalty, their jubilation is something they will remember for the rest of their lives.
Yesterday several of my younger female colleagues reflected on what the win meant to them: “We weren’t allowed to play in PE.”
“At school the closest we got to playing football was being booted in the face by a ball at breaktime.”
“[Expletive] hockey and netball.”
So let’s see whether this Government breaks promises on girls’ PE, like the last lot did.
Wiegman told journalists yesterday: “Of course, we know with winning the Euros, that makes change. It inspires young kids but also you see so many people that you inspire – not just little girls but little boys and grandads and grandmas and whole families.”
And thank you for the response to last week’s column about taking my eldest daughter to Geneva to see her heroes win their semi-final.
Hull’s David Batte writes in. He recalls taking his own daughter to Zwolle 14 years ago, for a 0-0 draw with the Netherlands: “Fara Williams missed a penalty and there were about 25 England fans.”
David’s daughter, Kathryn Batte, is now women’s football reporter for The Telegraph.