Your editorial on women’s football (As England reach the knockout stages of the World Cup, it’s time to put out more flags, 22 June) asks us to imagine how different school playgrounds would be if female footballers were household names and role models for the girls.
Last academic year, tired of seeing the year 9 girls in my form hanging around on the fringes of games until the boys deigned to include them (or, most usually, not to), I brought in two footballs marked for their specific use. The following day one had been taken by older boys (soon got that back). The other had been confiscated by a maths teacher who thought the girls were playing annoyingly close to his classroom – the only space available since the boys had bagged the others. (Was unable to compel the return of that one.)
In addition, on holidays over the years I saw my talented (and now GB-capped) basketball-playing daughter humouring boys in pick-up games. The trick was to play well enough to be included, but not so well that it became obvious she could beat them. Should that happen, the boys would either stop playing or gang up together to keep the ball from the girl.
Girls are getting the message: it is when the boys (of all ages) wake up and accept that sporting excellence is a girl thing too that we will see the changes in the playground.
Leah Ottewill
Genoa, Italy
• Harald Hardrada, Sigurd Ibsen, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Christian Michelsen, Einar Gerhardsen, Roald Amundsen, King Harald V, Erna Solberg; can you hear us? Your women took a hell of a beating! And we remember 1981 (Sampson’s super-subs turn the tide to put England in uncharted territory, Sport, 23 June).
Martin Smith
Guildford, Surrey
