Painting Wembley Red and Blue
I was always going to go, I knew that much. It was nice that the Women’s FA Cup final – the conclusion of last season's competition, delayed by the pandemic - featured the top two clubs in the league at the moment and it was great that this was a grudge match after Arsenal did one over Chelsea on the opening day of the 21/22 WSL season.
But the date was something special, if you’re a bit of an anorak like me. 5 December. To hold the 50th Women’s FA Cup final on the very day that the FA banned women’s football 100 years ago: there was sublime poetry in motion regardless of which teams of 11 women took to the field. That a female manager won it, in the end, was apt, albeit bittersweet for someone rooting for the red side of London on the day.
The FA announced much earlier in the week that this 50th anniversary of the Women’s FA Cup was going to celebrate the trailblazers of women’s football. A number of key events were planned involving former captains of FA Cup finalists. The names of former captains of FA Cup winning sides were to be displayed on the famous Wembley steps. Yes, the FA was definitely going big, because they knew quite well there was atonement in the undercurrents when it came to women’s football.
This ban that happened in 1921 came about as a bit of a huff, an annoyance among the menfolk of the day that women - WOMEN - were playing football, and playing it well. So well, that on Boxing Day in 1920, the famous Preston-based side Dick Kerr’s Ladies played St. Helen’s at Goodison Park to a crowd of 53,000 - the largest gate at any football match to that date. A year later a resolution was passed by the FA that football was ‘quite unsuitable for females’ and that all men’s clubs should refuse women to play at their grounds. This insecurity-driven ban lasted for almost 50 years, until 1971.
When I learnt about this ban, I was baffled because this country was meant to be the ‘home’ of football - or so went the chants - and yet women were not allowed to play until half a decade after the men won the World Cup? Atrocious. But it also explained a lot about why the narrative that football was for men persisted for so long.
It didn’t stop the women playing, of course: it wasn’t illegal. It was just that there was no FA-sanctioned competition, no league, nothing official. But if you want to make something popular, just ban it - and on the back of the ban, football magazine 4-4-2 described the women’s game as English sport’s best kept secret.
But the ban did have an impact on the development of the game, so much so that while FIFA has been running the World Cup for men’s football since 1930, we are only seeing the 9th instalment of the Women’s World Cup in 2023. Money and marketing has taken over the men’s game in the 1990s, and without similar support for the women, we are only seeing the emergence of professional contracts, leagues, officials and grassroots developments for women in the past decade or so.
Nonetheless, the FA Cup final was not a lament of things lost, but a celebration of a past recaptured. Lining up on the pitch, the first elevens of Arsenal and Chelsea featured some of the best players in the world today. In Pernille Harder Chelsea had the world’s most expensive female player, in Sam Kerr the third placed Ballon D’or winner, in Fran Kirby one of the most creative players of her generation. And in Viv Miedema Arsenal had a goalscoring record-breaker extraordinaire at just 25, in Katie McCabe a player capable of turning the game with a magical strike, in Kim Little, Scotland’s (now retired) best kept secret and until recently – the league top goalscorer. This was going to be a cracker, especially after Arsenal did one over Chelsea on the opening day of the 21/22 WSL season.
Or so I thought.
As early as the 4th minute, Kirby - Super Fran Kirby, as her beloved Chelsea fans call her - scored, stunning the red half of London into early silence. Arsenal seemed flat footed in defence, not quite sure where the Chelsea forwards were and by the time they looked up it was too late. 1-0.
I was waiting for an Arsenal comeback, something magical from midfield: a pass, a through-ball, a wonder-kick towards goal. None of which really happened. Erin Cuthbert did an amazing job - crunching tackles notwithstanding - in keeping the Arsenal wingers quiet, and it was the Chelsea forwards who were making run after run against a heavy looking Arsenal back four.
Shot after shot headed towards goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger, who time and again produced one magnificent save after another while her defensive line continued to let her down. If it wasn’t for the Austrian, the score would not have stayed the same after the first 45 minutes.
Expecting a change at halftime, I was a bit surprised that Arsenal came back with the same eleven. Nothing new or inventive from Arsenal, and Zinsberger continued to keep the game barely alive for her side. Given her efforts, it seemed cruel that twelve minutes into the second half Sam Kerr got the better of her and made it 2-0 for Chelsea. At this point Arsenal looked a bit lost, with Miedema tracking back a lot deeper than usual, and every attack Mead or McCabe launched dealt with effectively by the Chelsea defenders.
The Arsenal midfield looked like they were out of options, and by the time Japanese World Cup winner Iwabuchi was introduced, there was very little magic left for Mana to bring. Iwabuchi and US star Tobin Heath - two creative players in the Arsenal side - had been sidelined by injury in the past few games, as had Leah Williamson, the defensive stalwart that the back four were sorely missing.
If Arsenal looked like they forgot to bring the party to the pitch, Chelsea celebrated the game - and the poignant date with all its symbolic ramifications - in style. They played with a joy that seemed to be carefree: a spring in their step as the air seemed to hum with their infectious footballing camaraderie.
It seemed apt, then, that Chelsea’s third goal - Kerr’s second - was a cheeky chip over the 5ft 11 Zinsberger: it captured the spirit of Chelsea’s play on the day. It finished 3-0 at full time, Chelsea exacting revenge for their season opener loss with a touch more sweetness: they had a cup to go with it.
As much a victory for Chelsea, as it was a victory for the women’s game. 40,942 spectators at Wembley - only the 7th FA Cup final to be played there since 1971. Not the highest on record - that is held by the 2018 finals, played by the very same teams. 45,423 turned up to watch that game which was played in May . 40-thousand odd on a chilly December Sunday isn’t bad at all.
The fan support for both sides was electric - and while certain groups of fans from each side congregated behind the two goals, the rest of the stadium was a mixture of blue and red. A lovely mix of ages, too - in front of me a group of teenage male Arsenal fans who knew each player by heart, increasingly getting annoyed by - but also trying to annoy - an older gentleman a row ahead who was a Chelsea fan celebrating each goal as if he was 17, not 70. Next to him, a young family, with a boy of maybe 6 or 7 and his younger sister, both scowling and screaming ‘Arsenal!’ every time the older man shouted ‘Chelsea’. The days of the women’s game being watched by the coach and a random bystander with a dog are no longer here, it seems.
A brilliant afternoon if you were a Chelsea fan, not so for an Arsenal fan, and entertaining football for a neutral. The occasion made much more special and poignant for what it stood for: how far women’s football has come since the revocation of the ban in 1971. But also it came with a stark reminder, looking at the prize money the champions took home: £26,000 for the winners - the men’s FA Cup winners take home £1.8m.
So much achieved, yet so much left to work for. So yeah, I was always going to go to this game, because it wasn’t just an FA Cup final, mythical and symbolic as they tend to be in English football. This was a celebration of progress for this generation, a celebration of what we can do if we stuck together. This time it felt like hope. This time everything felt personal.
Written by Idlan Zakaria