Lewes Women: relegated from the Women’s Championship but the club continues to be a beacon of enlightenment in women’s sport and a challenge to the football hierarchy

Yesterday (21st April 2024), a record league crowd of 2,614, packed the Dripping Pan for the final home game of the 2023/24 season to watch Lewes Women against Crystal Palace. The Rooks needed a draw or a win to have any hope of avoiding relegation, and Palace a win to all but secure the championship and promotion to the Women’s Super League.

But it was not to be with Lewes losing 2-0. Congratulations to Crystal Palace and best wishes for next year in the best women’s league in the world. But for Lewes, next season will see us in the Southern Premier League, with trips to Plymouth, Cardiff and Oxford.

I can’t express the level of my disappointment and sadness, for the players and staff, and all the loyal supporters who stuck with the Rooks through a difficult season. It could have been so different. In at least least three games we conceded equalisers in the 90th minute or later, thus squandering six points. Worst came at league leaders Sunderland where we squandered a 3-2 lead to lose 4-3 with goals in the 94th and 95th minutes. 

Lewes signed a number of exciting players over the last year or so, not least our keeper, Sophie Whitehouse. But it says something that she was regularly named as our player of the match. There was also Maltese international, Maria Farrugia, who was named Barclays Player of the Championship for March, not a bad achievement for someone playing in a team struggling in the relegation zone.  I always enjoyed the combative approach taken by Hollie Olding and Lois Heuchan. I wonder how many of these players, and the squad as a whole, we will be able to retain for next season.

But there was something missing. The team didn’t always gel as a unit and seemed to lack some imagination in its football in a league where the standard of play improved faster than that of our team.

Lewes FC has brought something special to the Women’s Championship and to women’s football as a whole. Equality FC – the clubs commitment to equality between our women and men’s teams (equal pay, equal access to facilities, marketing, etc.) – continues to be a beacon of enlightenment in women’s sport and a challenge to the football hierarchy. It inspired me to become a co-owner and an enthusiast for everything the club stands for.

What will remain as we contemplate football in the third tier of the English game, is the spirit of the club personified by the enthusiastic support that the team gets week-in, week-out. For most of us, we have stuck with the team through thick and thin, and we will be there when the new season commences. And as an eternal optimist, back-to-back promotions to the Championship and then the Women’s Super League over the next two years is an exciting prospect …! COYR!

Level Playing Fields: Why transwomen, those born male, should not be allowed to participate in women’s sport

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 7th February 2024)

In the United States, today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Its purpose is to break the sex stereotypes built around the sports industry, to assert that women belong in every aspect of sport.

Regular readers will know of my support and enthusiasm for Lewes Football Club. I was so inspired by the club’s equality agenda that, along with over 2,500 others in more than 40 countries, I became a co-owner.  Lewes FC was the first and remains the only professional or semi-professional football club in the world to have equality between their men and women’s teams: equal playing budgets, access to facilities, marketing budgets, and so on. This is what has been called #EqualityFC.

This approach just seems fair. Advancement of women’s sport is happening in England thanks to football’s Lionesses, rugby’s Red Roses, and the women’s cricket team, to mention but a few.  In individual sports there have been some exceptional women athletes such as Denise Lewis, Jessica Ennis-Hill, and Brighton’s Sally Gunnell.

The former swimmer, Sharron Davies, in her excellent book Unfair Play (written with Craig Lord) catalogues the systematic doping of swimmers from the former East Germany. Because of their drug-fuelled enhanced performance Sharon was denied a gold medal in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She lists others who were denied medals and thus the life-opportunities and financial rewards that would have followed Olympic success.

There is widespread acceptance that the East Germans cheated their way to swimming success. Some of their gold medalists have offered to return their medals so that clean athletes could receive them and get the belated recognition that they deserve. Yet the Olympic authorities have failed to act. Sharron says it is too late for some British swimmers like Ann Osgerby, June Croft and Jackie Wilmott who have all sadly passed on.

It is fairness which makes me opposed to the inclusion of trans women (those born male) in women’s sport. Women have fought long and hard to get their sport recognised, in media coverage and in rewards. But if trans women had been allowed to compete against Lewis, Ennis-Hill and Gunnell, they almost certainly would not have secured their Olympic gold medals.

Men and women’s sport is different because men and women have different physiologies. The former Olympic swimmer, Nancy Hogshead-Makar has compared the physiologies and performances of the US swimmers, Missy Franklin and Ryan Lockte. Both are multiple Olympic and world champions. Both have had first-class training, coaching and support. Both are 6’2” with 6’4” ‘wingspans’. Both hold world records in 200 meter backstroke. Ryan’s best time is 1:52:96 while Missy’s world record is 2:04:06. Missy’s best would have placed her 50th in the US men’s Olympic trials. This is similar in track and field, and in other sports.

When trans women who have been through male puberty are allowed to compete in women’s sport, in an echo of East German swimmers, they have an unfair advantage that is likely to rob women of their success, recognition and financial reward. And in contact sports it can be dangerous. For example, a male of equal weight and height to a female can punch 160% harder.

If a 6’6” trans woman was allowed to play rugby, even against the top women rugby players like Marlie Packer and Abby Dow, the risk of injury would be great. How long would it be before the wonderful Red Roses were dominated by players who have benefited from male puberty?

The developmental biologist, Dr Emma Hilton, and Dr Tommy Lindberg, an exercise physiologist, concluded in a joint peer-reviewed research paper: “The biological advantage, most notably in terms of muscle mass and strength, conferred by male puberty and thus enjoyed by most transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed by current sporting guidelines for transgender athletes.”

Hilton and Lindberg reported that even after a year’s hormone-reduction therapy, the expected 5% drop in muscle mass in trans women resulted in a negligible loss of muscle strength and they remain much stronger than any of the women they wish to compete against.

For these and other reasons, I cannot support trans women competing in women’s support. There is an alternative, a third category in which trans women can compete against each other. However, it is notable that where this has been trialled, the event has been cancelled due to a lack of entrants. It is also notable that trans men (those born female) have never sought to compete in men’s sport where they would have a huge physiological disadvantage.

This is not about prejudice. It’s simply about fairness.

EqualityFC 2.0 makes the case for paying women footballers at Lewes FC more than their men

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 4th October 2023)

In 2017 Lewes Football Club shook the football world by deciding that their men’s and women’s teams would receive equal resources – equal playing budgets, access to facilities, marketing, and so on. It was the first professional or semi-professional club in the world to do so, and it remains the only club to do so. It was a bold and clear, even revolutionary, statement saying that sex equality in football is possible.

EqualityFC, as this approach is known, was the vision of Ed Ramsden and his friend, Charlie Dobres, who are both former directors of the club.  Since then, Lewes Women have gone up a league and now play in the Women’s Championship, the second tier in English football. The men’s team has also been promoted to the seventh tier of the men’s game. Attendance has greatly increased, as has sponsorship and gate receipts. As Charlie Dobres says: “EqualityFC has indisputably worked.”

But Charlie says that EqualityFC has reached “a fork in the road”. What it does next is important because what Lewes FC does really matters in the world of football. “It boils down to if you think that the club’s move to equal playing budgets was a destination or instead a starting point along the way?” Given that the women play at an elite level – it is one of the top 24 teams in the country – why are the women not paid more?

Charlie argues powerfully that “female footballers are unfairly disadvantaged by their sex irrespective of ability or achievement, and we want to end that disadvantage.”

EqualityFC made a practical and emotional difference throughout the club, not least to the women players. It inspired hundreds of people, myself included, to become co-owners. There are now 2,500 owners in over 40 countries around the world. Many people are shocked when they learn that in 1921 women’s football was banned in England and in many other countries. That ban was not lifted until 1971. This historic inequality, and the sexism that persists in the game today (and throughout society, of course), means that the men’s game has been allowed to reap all the benefits and rewards that it enjoys to this day.

In 2016 Ed Ramsden said that men’s football dominance was “more a function of it having been systematically given nearly all the money and attention for many decades than any innate human preference for men’s sport.”

Charlie explains that “EqualityFC was affirmative action designed to help female footballers redress as fast as possible that gaping inequality.”

As for that ‘fork in the road’, Lewes FC has the opportunity provided by better TV deals, sponsorship and external investment to “take the road untraveled by any club in the world,” as Charlie describes it, “to enable its women’s team to now receive a bigger playing budget that its men’s. This would enable the team to compete and progress in an ever-stronger league.  To not  do so would restrict the team and its players’ progression. It would mean that EqualityFC be interpreted to act as a block on the female players” which was never the intention. Quite the opposite.

That is why we need what Charlie Dobres calls EqualityFC 2.0. The shared benefits for the men and women might not come at the same time. Investment in the women’s team will, in due course, result in further revenues which will benefit the men.

EqualityFC has done no harm to the men’s team. In fact, they have benefited from the increased revenues enjoyed by the club including the increased sponsorship generated by the club’s ethos. Both the men’s and women’s team have benefited from the new playing surface thanks to a £750,000 grant from the Premier League for which the club was eligible because the women play at an elite level.  As an advertising board at the club’s ground, The Dripping Pan, proudly states: “Equality is a rising tide that lifts all boats.” When women benefit, so do men.

The club is now considering if and how the women’s team can benefit from external investment. As a consequence, the men’s team will also benefit. While there are some who are wary of this external investment, I and many other owners see it as an exciting opportunity for the club to achieve its aspirations. 

There are still some who refuse to recognise the historic disadvantage experienced by women footballers.  In response Charlie Dobres quotes Simone de Beauvoir: “…her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.” He says that EqualityFC 2.0 will allow Lewes FC to soar.

Football At Its Best: Women Leading the Way

The goals. The atmosphere. The result! What a wonderful evening at the Brighton Community Stadium as the Lionesses of England mauled the Grasshoppers from Norway.

My view as the seventh goal goes in against Norway

Nobody had forecast the 8-0 result. The Norwegian women were expected to provide a far greater challenge to the tournament hosts, England. For the home side, this was football at its best.

Please note, I didn’t say ‘women’s football’. I said football. Women don’t play a different form of the game. The pitch, ball and goals are the same size as when men play.

But there are differences. It is not that the England women are just more successful than their male counterparts. There are less histrionics from the women. The crowd is as passionate, yet less aggressive. The game itself is as exciting, just more goals! And why do we want to watch our teams play? To see goals and to win. The England women do this, and in abundance.

But on the downside, the women’s game continues to receive less investment, has a lower profile, and is undervalued in many quarters. 

Few women outside the top tier can afford to play as full-time professionals. All players in the top four tiers of the men’s game are fully professional. Some male players are paid obscene amounts, more than enough in a month to bankroll for a year the entire women’s team at some clubs.

The Euros are showing that, when women are allowed to play on the biggest stage, they attract capacity, passionate crowds, be it at Old Trafford or in Brighton. From a simple commercial perspective, they bring in a new cohort of fans who spend their money to get into the ground, who buy replica shirts and other merchandise, and who patronise refreshment concessions.

How short-sighted it is of those who run our biggest clubs that they are blind to such commercial opportunities offered by widening the support base for their teams.

Brighton and Hove Albion has invested in training facilities for its women’s team, and the team is now competing at the highest level in the Women’s Super League. Yet the club has exiled it to play its home games in Crawley, thereby reducing its potential support base. With some pride it recently announced that “at least two fixtures” will be played at the Amex next season. What do they want? A medal? A brass-band parade?

If you want to see an example of where equality between the women’s and men’s games exists, you have to look no further than Lewes FC.

Action at The Dripping Pan

12 years ago the club, on the verge of financial collapse, became 100% fan-owned. Five years ago it launched its #EqualityFC initiative, committing to split all resources equally amongst its women’s and men’s teams. The squads have equal playing budgets, same training facilities, same pitch, same marketing.

It was the first and is currently the only professional or semi-professional club in the world to have equality between their women’s and men’s teams.

How has this gone down with supporters? Since 2017, average women’s attendances have risen by 367%. Over the same period, the club increased the price of women’s ticket to the same level as for men’s matches, and still the supporters come in ever-increasing numbers.

This has had a positive impact throughout the club. Since 2017, average attendances at the men’s games have also risen, by 82%, and last season a men’s league match sold out for the first time in 70 years and a women’s game, against champions Liverpool, for the first time ever. Lewes won that game 2-1.

This summer, the Premier League Stadium Fund awarded the Lewes women’s team a brand new, state-of-the-art grass hybrid pitch with a grant of £750,000. Because the women’s and men’s teams share the same stadium, both teams benefit. A sign at the club’s Dripping Pan ground says: “Equality is a rising tide that lifts all boats.”

Women’s football was banned by the Football Association for 50 years, until 1971. It has taken time to recover but it is now in rude health. Even though I am South African, I am cheering on the Mighty Lionesses in the Euros. I was also delighted to see that Rebecca McKenna became the first Lewes player, the first Rook ever, to represent her country, Northern Ireland, at a major championship.

I am a proud co-owner at Lewes FC. There are over 2,300 of us, in 38 countries. Why not join us? And if you remain unconvinced, come to a game at the Dripping Pan this coming season? If you live in Brighton and Hove, it’s easier to get to Lewes than to Crawley!

Meanwhile, good luck to the Lionesses in tonight’s quarter-final against Spain at the Amex.

(This item first appeared in my ‘Brighton and `beyond’ column in the Brighton Argus on 20th July 2022)