Hello. This is 6 Minute English and I’m Catherine. |
And I’m Sam. |
Now Sam, have you been watching the World Cup? |
Cricket or football? |
Because they are both being played at the moment. |
They are. Now I’m talking about football, the Women’s World Cup. |
In that case, yes, I have. |
I’ve really enjoyed it and it’s been great that finally we can watch the matches live on TV and that there has been so much interest in the media. |
We’ll be finding out a little bit more about the history of women’s football in England in today’s programme, but first, Sam, a question for you. |
When was the first official woman’s football World Cup? |
Was it... A: 1970 B: 1988, or C: 1991? |
What do you think, Sam? |
Well I think I can get this through mathematics rather than knowledge, so I’m not going to say it right now, but I’ll tell you later. |
OK. Well I will tell you the answer later in the programme. |
Now, Gemma Clarke is a writer on women’s football in England and she spoke recently on the BBC Woman’s Hour Programme. |
Here she describes the reaction throughout the years to women’s football. |
Has it been easy for the women’s game in England? |
Women’s football has really been a struggle to play, to have any kind of agency and to be taken seriously as athletes. |
That can be seen throughout history. |
I think every moment that women’s football has had, you know there’s been a kind of, a backlash afterwards or a kind of an attempt to keep women back and to dampen enthusiasm for the sport. |
So, it’s not been easy, has it? |
No, she said it’s been a struggle, which means it’s been difficult to make any progress. |
And she also mentioned that there was no agency in the women’s game. |
To have agency means you have control over your own situation, you can make the decisions you want to make. |
So she’s saying that the women’s game didn’t really have control over its own future. |
Every time they had some success, there was a backlash, there was a negative reaction to their success. |
That’s right and she goes on to say that people tried to dampen enthusiasm for the sport. |
They tried to make it difficult for people to see and enjoy it. |
So who tried to dampen enthusiasm and how did they do it? |
Well, during and after the First World War, women’s football became really popular with crowds of up to 50,000 watching games. |
It may have been popular with the crowds, but it wasn’t so popular with the men who ran the game, the English Football Association. |
Here’s Gemma Clarke again. |
The men’s football association were panicked by seeing women doing so well and they banned all women from playing football on association grounds and that lasted for about 50 years. |
It was a very concerted effort to keep women’s football at amateur status and ensure that there weren’t crowds watching them play. |
So the men were really worried by the success of the women’s game. |
They thought that it might take money and supporters away from the men’s game. |
So they banned woman from playing on their pitches. |
This means that they no longer allowed them to use the pitches anymore. |
This effectively killed the professional women’s game as up to then they had been using the same facilities as the men. |
This she says was a concerted effort to restrict women’s football. |
When you make a concerted effort to do something it means that you try really hard to do it. |
I’m pleased to say that the ban on woman using Football Association pitches was eventually lifted, although only comparatively recently, in 1971. |
Right, before we review today’s vocabulary, let’s have the answer to today’s question. |
So I asked you, Sam, when was the first official Women’s World Cup? |
Was it… A: 1970 B: 1988, or C: 1991? |
And you said Sam that you were going to work this out with maths – so come on then. |
I know, I did! So, I know the World Cup is held every four years, |
it’s 2019 now, so the answer must be an odd year – bear with me - which makes it 1991. |
Am I right, Catherine? |
Well we’ll see if that mathematical approach is any better than actually just knowing the answer. |
The first World Cup for women was actually held in... |
Come on, hurry up! Let me out of my misery. |
1970.0 |
I can’t believe I got that wrong. |
But, it wasn’t an official tournament. |
The first official women’s world cup was indeed 1991. |
So your maths worked. |
So well done Sam and everybody else who got that right. |
Now, before we get to extra time and penalties, let’s recap today’s vocabulary. |
A struggle is how you can describe something that is very difficult to achieve, something you have to fight for. |
To have agency means being able to act independently and have control over your own choices. |
A backlash is a strong negative reaction to something. |
If you try to dampen enthusiasm for something, you try to make people less interested in it. |
Banning something means using certain powers to stop something from happening. |
And finally, making a concerted effort means trying really hard. |
Well the final whistle has blown for us today. |
Bye for now. |
Bye! |