England and Lauren Hemp lead the way in Women’s Euros that promise much

At Old Trafford on Wednesday night the Women’s European Championship will get under way in front of a crowd of 73,000. England, the tournament hosts, will play Austria with Sarina Wiegman’s team hoping to prove their credentials as leading contenders for the trophy. Alongside a lavish opening ceremony, it is guaranteed there will be fireworks – a showcase for a sport exploding in popularity.

When England last hosted a Women’s European Championship finals, in 2005, the mood was very different. The coach of the national team – the pioneering Hope Powell – declared before the tournament that “the women’s game here is a second-class sport”. Her players were part-time, matches were played only in the north-west, and only eight teams took part. Lennart Johansson, then the president of Uefa, suggested one way to grow the sport further might be for sponsors to run campaigns featuring a “sweaty, lovely looking girl” playing in the rain.

Johansson’s words were thankfully ignored, and 2005 began a long journey of growth for women’s football in England. The team were popular, with players such as Karen Carney, Kelly Smith and Eni Aluko, alongside Powell, going on to become well known. Participation in football among women and girls began to rise and the proposed idea of a professional women’s league started to take shape.

In 2022, Powell is the head coach of Brighton & Hove Albion, who compete in the FA Women’s Super League, a fully professional competition that last year signed what is thought to be the biggest broadcasting rights deal in women’s football history. In 2020, before the onset of Covid, 3.14 million women and girls were playing the sport in England, double the total of three years previous. Carney, meanwhile, is a