When You’re Told You’re Not Good Enough: What Women’s Football Can Teach Us

“Watching women’s football feels like watching a lower league.”
“You know they’d likely lose to a boys’ team, right?”

These were comments said to me – a woman – recently by men. Casually. With confidence. And it echoed something I’ve heard before. Something about it landed like a weight. Not because I play football, or even watch it much. But because I know that feeling of being underestimated, dismissed, and quietly pushed aside.

It’s that quiet, familiar ache of being told that people like me don’t quite belong – not necessarily overtly, but in the quiet ways that leave no room for possibility.

A Game Interrupted – The Rise They Tried to Halt

What few people realise is that, in late 1920, women’s football reached extraordinary heights. During the First World War, women’s teams filled stadiums. On Boxing Day over 53,000 fans packed Goodison Park to watch the Dick, Kerr Ladies play, with up to 15,000 more people reportedly turned away – attendance higher than most top‑flight men’s matches at the time, which averaged around 35,000 per game.

In that window, women’s football captured a level of national attention few could have predicted. They raised thousands for charities. They trained with discipline. They drew record-breaking crowds. For a moment, they were national heroes.

But in December 1921, the Football Association banned women from playing on FA pitches. The official statement claimed the sport was “unsuitable for females.”

It wasn’t just a ban. It was a silencing.

It lasted for 50 years. During that time, women’s football had no formal league structure, no support, and no access to facilities or funding. The damage wasn’t just practical. It was cultural.

An entire generation grew up with the belief that football wasn’t for girls.

Those beliefs didn’t disappear when the ban was lifted in 1971. They continued – quietly shaping coaching decisions, media coverage, and public perceptions.

So Why Are They Still Dismissed?

It’s 2025. Women’s football in England has never been stronger.

• The Lionesses won the UEFA Women’s Euros in 2022 in front of nearly 90,000 fans at Wembley
• In 2023, they reached the World Cup final, narrowly losing to Spain
• And on 27 July 2025, they did it again – beating Spain on penalties to become back-to-back European champions

That final became the most-watched TV moment of the year in the UK, peaking at 16.2 million viewers across BBC One and ITV. Days later, 65,000 fans filled The Mall in London to welcome them home; and the UK Government responded announcing plans to more than double grassroots football opportunities and improve facilities for women and girls over the next decade.

And yet, those quiet dismissals still show up…

In another moment recently. I’d said I’d read that women’s football was once more popular than the men’s game. A man responded, “I doubt it.” And for a second, I doubted myself too. Not because I didn’t believe it could be true – but because that quiet second-guessing is something I’ve been trained into. It’s so easy to assume someone else must know better, especially when they sound so sure.

The old comments surface easily.
“They’d lose to a boys’ team.”
“It’s not the same standard.”

Not questions. Not curiosity. Just quiet dismissals passed off as fact.

So why, even now, are they still dismissed?

Maybe part of the answer lies in what people think they’re watching. If you’ve been taught that faster and stronger automatically means better, then something different might feel like less – even if it isn’t.

There’s a kind of inherited assumption at play. And when you’ve been left out of a story for so long, people don’t always know how to see you – even when you’re right there in the spotlight.

The Myth of Comparison

It’s true that women’s national teams have sometimes played training games against under-15 or under-16 boys’ academy sides in closed-door sessions used in preparation for tournaments or to simulate certain styles of play.

But these boys are not casual players. They are high-performing athletes from elite academies – trained at the highest level since early childhood.

And physical differences do matter. After puberty, males typically develop more muscle mass, greater speed and aerobic capacity. That’s not about effort or skill – it’s biology.

But technique, strategy, vision and discipline are not limited by sex.

Using these internal drills to “prove” that women’s football is less worthy is like judging a violinist’s talent by how loud they can play next to a drum kit. It misses the point entirely.

What Do We Mean by ‘Better’?

Part of what’s happening here may be this: for generations, we’ve been taught that faster, harder, louder equals better.

In football, that’s speed and strength. In everyday life, it’s often the loudest voice – or the one that fills the most space – that gets heard.

But women’s football doesn’t always follow the same rhythm.

• It’s often more technical
• There’s less time-wasting and exaggeration
• Fouls tend to be fewer, and tackles cleaner
• The game can reward patience and team cohesion

Maybe what some interpret as “less intense” is actually something else: clarity, precision, and collective resilience?

Just like quiet people in noisy rooms – we’re not always seen, because we’re not performing in the way others expect.

From Exclusion to Excellence

The women’s game is growing not in spite of its difference, but because of it. It’s not trying to mirror the men’s game. It’s becoming something that stands on its own. And maybe that’s the most powerful parallel of all.

For many of us in this community, we know what it’s like to be left out of systems that weren’t designed for us.

To be told we don’t look like leaders, because we aren’t loud or fast to speak.
To be passed over in group settings, even when our thinking runs deep.
To internalise the idea that our quietness is something to fix, to make us act like others.

We’ve been learning that comparison is rarely fair – and rarely helpful.

Because what if the aim isn’t to beat someone else…
What if it’s to belong. To thrive. To show up fully as yourself?

What Quiet Power Looks Like

The England Women’s team didn’t need to beat the men to earn their place in history. They needed to be seen for what they are: determined, skilled, visionary, and fiercely united.

And maybe that’s the message for all of us who’ve been underestimated.

You don’t have to be louder to be worthy.
You don’t need to follow someone else’s path to succeed.

Quiet power isn’t about shouting louder.
It’s the forward who sees the pass no one else does.
The team who keeps their nerve under pressure.
The person in the room who listens first, then speaks with calm clarity.

It’s quiet – but it changes everything.

What else might become possible when we stop measuring worth by volume?