‘Do something now’: inside the Lionesses’ drive to get girls playing

On Monday the England centre-back Lotte Wubben-Moy ducked down the aisle of the team bus as it wove its way from the Euro 2022 victory celebrations in Trafalgar Square. The 23-year-old was on a mission.

“I don’t know whether it was the energy of being in London, being around people out in front of the National Portrait Gallery that were screaming our names as we were dancing in front of them, but it was a catalyst for me to then go say it to everyone and go to Leah [Williamson, the captain] and Sue [Campbell, the director of women’s football at the Football Association] to say: ‘We need to do something now.’”

The result was a letter, signed by all 23 players in the squad that had won the team’s first major trophy. It was addressed to Tory leadership hopefuls Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, urging whichever becomes prime minister to ensure every girl in school has access to football in PE.

It read: “Currently only 63% of girls can play football in PE lessons. The reality is we are inspiring young girls to play football, only for many to end up going to school and not being able to play. This is something that we all experienced growing up. We were often stopped from playing. So we made our own teams, we travelled across the country and despite the odds, we just kept playing football.”

Truss and Sunak have replied but neither has promised to push the figure up to 100%, with Truss committing to “investigating what prevents schools from delivering the recommended minimum two hours of PE per week” and Sunak pledging to “tighten accountability”.

Wubben-Moy’s motivation was to turn words into action. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” she says. “I was like: ‘Let’s go. Let’s get this going. Let’s make it tangible,