Week 34: Mind The Gap

Walsall Junior Youth League – early 1980s.

The start of a new season, and I’m part of a group of excited boys ready to embark on a new adventure together. It’s a hot Sunday September afternoon, somewhere in the suburbs of the town.

We’re a decent team too. A year earlier, nearly all of us had broken records by winning every available game bar one in an amazing season for our primary school; taking the league with a 100% record, retaining the cup and also winning the indoor 6-a-side and outdoor 5-a-side competitions for good measure.

Therefore, there was plenty of optimism for the season ahead and a match with a team who were new to the league in our opening under-13 fixture promised much.

I’ve mentioned it before in this column but I was a bit of a freak at the age of 12. Already almost six-foot-tall, I was several inches taller than my team-mates and jokingly (but still true) used to say that once I started playing football – relatively late – as a nine-year-old, I won every single header for the next four years.

This was to be the day that came to an end.

There had been some rumours that the team we were playing had been accused of fielding over-age players under a different moniker in a different league. Hardly something that crosses the minds of eager 11 and 12-year olds who just want to have fun, but I remember the parents talking about it.

When the opposition walked onto the field, their fears looked to be confirmed. Although the tallest in my team by some way, I was much, much shorter than any of them. I looked like a  Hobbit in the shadow of a Harlem Globetrotter.

Now, at that stage – other than the rumours and the anecdotal evidence before me – there was no proof or evidence whatsoever that the players were older than we were. Okay, so four of them had moustaches – two of which were accompanied by fully grown beards – but that didn’t, on its own, prove anything.

The game was a one-sided massacre. We were simply overrun all over the park by eleven taller, physically stronger and mentally tougher ‘boys’. It was brutal as they scored at will in both halves and ended up beating us 13-0.

We weren’t just lucky to get nil. We were lucky to get off that pitch alive.

There was uproar on the side-lines, both during and after the game. As two of their players drove off from the car park, serious questions were being asked. Their manager put up a good front, saying it was an outrage to suggest any of his team were older than twelve. Our manager asked to speak to their tallest and strongest player so he could quiz him about his date of birth but the request was declined. The player’s wife was heavily pregnant with their second child and he needed to be with her so their manager politely told us to ‘f**k off back to where we came from.’ Luckily, it was a fifteen-minute drive down the dual carriageway.

A complaint was subsequently made to the County FA and the League which dragged on for most of the season as team after team followed our lead while ten, eleven, twelve and even twenty-odd goal margins were recorded and this team went on to top the league by a mile.

The powers-that-be couldn’t find solid evidence but were given a back-door opportunity to resolve the matter when this team beat the shit out of one set of opponents after a game and were thrown out for this as several players were asked to appear at a disciplinary hearing but couldn’t get the time off work.

At the time, we had little more than damaged pride after such a tanking. Looking back now, it makes me smile. There were no winners. At all.

It certainly didn’t help the demoralised opposition to get stuffed by a double-figure score-line. Even with our own 100% win record as a school team, we had not beaten many teams out of sight and never scoring double figures. Yes, you can get eight and nine-goal wins but when it moves towards fifteen, it’s not on.

But the team dishing out the beatings didn’t benefit either other than a league title that had about as little credence as the Conservative Government’s regard for international law. There was nothing to gain from the non-competitive environment it created – they hardly had to break sweat to overrun teams half their size – or an educational one; if you’re wondering if they might have at least learnt to win with grace; they didn’t.

Most of all it did the League and FA no favours. Having a team that is blatantly cheating is never a good look but having such a wide gulf between teams is also unedifying and isn’t entertainment or a spectacle.

I bring it up on the back of a weekend that saw a 9-0 and 9-1 wins (by Chelsea with 9 different scorers, and Arsenal respectively) in the FA Women’s Super League.

Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not for one moment suggesting that there was any kind of foul play at work here. There was no skulduggery of any kind to be seen.

Or moustaches as far as I know.

But there is a gap and the WSL must hope it’s just a post-lockdown fluke and not setting a trend for the remainder of the campaign. In the whole of last season, it took three rounds of games for there to be a margin over two goals (4-0 wins for Arsenal and Chelsea). The biggest winning margin in October was three goals while November saw a 5-0 and a 6-0 victory. The most eye-catching score lines were in December when Arsenal defeated Bristol City 11-1, and then in the final month of the curtailed season when Chelsea won 8-0 versus West Ham; interestingly, the same four teams were involved in this season’s massive score lines.

But such huge wins should be a once or twice-in-a-season anomaly. Not twice in the same weekend.

One of the main positives as the WSL has started again – after the curtailed 2019/20 season when it seemed to be left on the shelf as the men’s game took priority – was the influx of high-profile players transferring to clubs from elsewhere. This included returning England internationals and players from some of the leading footballing countries around the world.

Before the transfer deadline, 73 players had joined – only 23 of them who qualify to play for England – but neither quantity nor quality were really the issue. It’s just that the very best players go to the very best teams and clubs that don’t have the same resources have to bring in players who they hope will develop and grow but aren’t superstars just yet.

But isn’t that exactly as its always been? Sort of, but possibly not in such an extreme way as we’ve seen this summer in the WSL And the resources and budgets are vastly different – again not unlike the men’s Premier League – but at least there, the vast financial rewards on offer from broadcasting rights mean that all clubs afford to either buy or keep top players far more than they used to and why the likes of Wilfred Zaha remains at Palace and Burnley can reject £30m offers from West Ham United for a defender.

The disparity in the WSL is bigger at the moment and the possibility of clear and obvious mismatches is a real risk. While some clubs pump considerable money into their women’s teams, others have been accused of underspending; the obvious example being Liverpool who’s men’s team followed their Champions League success by running away with the Premier League while the women were relegated, which drew criticism from fans and players alike.

To give it context, Liverpool’s turnover for their women’s team in 2019 was more than £1m and roughly in line with other clubs near the bottom of the table. But in a league that proudly says it is professional, they only had 10 employees listed in their 2019 accounts; half were players or coaches, the other half in admin and commercial roles. The majority of players  (19) were not full-time employees and worked less than 20 hours per week and thus, semi-professional. The club as a whole posted annual figures that showed a turnover of £533m and profits of £42m.

The women’s budget is also small when held up alongside Manchester City (£3,334,604) and Chelsea (£2,048,000).  City, for instance, were able to sign England full-backs, Lucy Bronze and Alex Greenwood from Champions League Winners, Lyon.

These and other arrivals from overseas have certainly helped to raise the profile of the WSL and despite fears of the impact on younger, English players (sound familiar?) the overall feeling is that it is a good thing that benefits the league and the national team. Outgoing England manager, Phil Neville, certainly thinks so.

“I always say people are worried about the English-qualified players not getting enough action because of the influx of world-class players, but ultimately world-class players will make the English player better and the English player has to be better to get in their teams,” Neville said. “I think this year will be the best WSL that we’ve seen, probably ever since it was started, in terms of competition, quality and depth.”

Interesting that he added competition. Those two results suggest not.

There is the counter-argument that would follow Neville’s logic; that a rising tide lifts all boats but this is only true if that tide doesn’t get so high as to capsize the smaller boats completely.

I might be over-reacting, taking two results and not waiting to see the longer-term effect that the new players and heightened profile might have. My fears may well be as wayward as a tennis ball in a Novak Djokovic temper tantrum.

There is also lots of hope that the gap might, in fact, contract.

Other teams, such as Manchester United and Everton, have made their own improvements to their squads and will provide a challenge.

And Spurs stole all the headlines when they announced the signing of USA-striker, Alex Morgan, on a short-term deal. 31-year old, Morgan – with more Twitter followers than THFC – has scored more than a hundred goals for her country and has been named in the FIFPro World XI on three occasions. She was a star of the last World Cup, scoring against England in the semi-final, as the USA defended their title.

Also, on the same day as Chelsea ran riot against Bristol City, Manchester City’s star-studded line-up was failing to score against Brighton despite dominating possession and the shot count. It might show that the other teams can raise their levels to match the top teams.

Or the goalless draw might turn out to be the exception that proves the rule.

But my concerns aren’t about the gap now, as big as it is. It’s if it gets bigger – the best get better and the others smaller and poorer by comparison. Even with three Champions League places, if they are continually sewn up by the current ‘Big 3’ then their wealth and ability to attract and afford the top players will grow too.

It’s the vicious circle that men’s leagues have suffered from for years all over Europe. If the same teams always finish top, they always qualify for Europe, always get more money and always get the best players.

I don’t know what the FA can do, but I know that – without any intervention – the gap will be much greater in three, five and ten years’ time if it continues to widen.

The WSL doesn’t want two distinct groups where the top three to five clubs are only competitive in games against each other, while the same is true at the other end of the table but when one from each group play each other, it starts to get silly.

Not Walsall Junior Youth League silly, but still something the WSL needs to be mindful to avoid if it really wants to be the best women’s league in the world.

words Darren Young, D3D4 columnist