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!

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)

The coronavirus lockdown has been a missed opportunity for women’s sport in the UK

Chelsea Women were crowned last week as champions of the Women’s Super League (WSL).  Remaining fixtures were cancelled and the championship was decided on the average of points gained per game played.  Through this method Chelsea, who were a point behind Manchester City when the season was suspended, just pipped City to the title.

They probably didn’t want to be crowned champions of WSL in such a way this year.  Their reward for winning the WSL is £100,000.  The team has decided to donate all the prize money to Refuge.

I wonder whether the winners of the Premiership will donate any of their prize money to charity?  Winning the Premier League brings with it all sorts of financial rewards, but the immediate prize for the champions is currently in the region of £150 million.

Prize money is drawn from broadcast revenue (TV money) including how many televised games they are involved in, as well as their final league position.

Lockdown could have been a massive opportunity to replay and showcase all women’s sport on tv. Sadly that this opportunity was missed when we have Olympic Gold medallists in hockey, Commonwealth Gold medallists in netball, Six Nations and previous World Champions in rugby, semi-finalist and bronze medal winners in World Cup football, and the women’s World Cup cricket champions, to name but a few.

Media organisations have been so blinkered in not seeing the commercial opportunities that women’s sport offers, and thus they have denied us the opportunity to celebrate and enjoy the achievements of women athletes in this country.

I am proud to be a co-owner of Lewes Football Club (along with 1,500 others). Lewes was the first club to introduce total equality between its men and women’s teams – equal access to facilities, marketing budgets, and pay for the women and men’s teams.

I am sad that Lewes FC remains the only club in the world to have such equality.  Full credit to the New Zealand football authorities for introducing equality between their men’s and women’s teams.  Lewes FC’s Katie Rood, a New Zealand international, has the unique distinction of being the only player in the world whose club and country practice equality.

New Zealand international and Lewes FC player Katie Rood

After Lewes trebled entrance fees to women’s home games, attendance quadrupled perhaps proving the point that if you sell things cheap, consumers might conclude that the product is not worth much. If you provide quality, you should charge a commensurate amount.

One of my great disappointments of the coronavirus lockdown is that I have missed the climax of the season at Lewes FC.  Never mind, there is always next season.  I can hardly wait to be cheering on the Rooks again.

Finally, Lewes FC has launched a Crowdfunding campaign for ground improvements at the Dripping Pan. Please support it. You will stand a chance of winning a Lewes FC shirt signed by the amazing Megan Rapinoe. And if you don’t know who she is, shame on you!