host country: England Events: July 6th to 31st Venues: Old Trafford, Manchester; St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton; Amex Stadium, Brighton; Stadium MK, Milton Keynes; Brentford Community Stadium; Leigh Sports Village; Bramall Lane, Sheffield; Academy Stadium, Manchester; New York Stadium, Rotherham; Wembley Stadium. |
Cover: All 31 games will be broadcast live on the BBC. Click here for more information |
“You can smell the football in the air,” said Peter Bonde, then Denmark head coach, ahead of the start of Euro 2005 – the last time England hosted the European Women’s Championship.
Seventeen years ago, the competition was a much smaller and less glittering affair than the tournament that was due to take place across the country this month.
Back then, all 15 matches were played at venues in the north west of England – including four at the new home of rugby league club Warrington Wolves.
According to Alex Stone, England’s media officer at Euro 2005, football clubs were not interested enough in hosting matches.
Dubbed the “greatest of all time” by Uefa, Euro 2022 promises to be an overall smoother and shinier edition.
Unlike in 2005, supermarkets are selling sticker albums featuring women’s football superstars such as Alexia Putellas, Vivianne Miedema and Lauren Hemp.
16 teams – twice as many as in 2005 – will play each other over 25 days with 71,300 tickets sold for the opening game between England and Austria on July 6th at Old Trafford.
The final will be played at Wembley on 31 July to a capacity crowd of 87,200 – an incredible number compared to the last time England hosted the event when just 957 spectators turned up for a France v Italy game at Preston’s Deepdale ground.
The Women’s Euros have made great progress. But what happened 17 years ago and what impact did Euro 2005 have on women’s football?
Table of Contents
Working as a mailwoman to pay for boots
While the Lionesses, seeking a European crown for the first time ever, start as one of the favorites this time, it was a different story when the Euros came to Manchester, Blackburn, Blackpool, Preston and Warrington.
Hope Powell’s side were part-time and the England manager explained before the tournament: “Women’s football here is a second-tier sport.”
Striker Kelly Smith’s club Arsenal were perhaps the best women’s team in England at the time, but with six months to go she had to work as a temporary postman to keep her boots on.
“It’s important that we put on a good show this summer, especially given the reputation that women’s football has in England – or not,” Smith said in an interview from the time, said then.
“There are a lot of negative images out there that mostly men cling to.”
Five months before Euro 2005, Powell took her players to La Manga for warm-weather training, but 17-year-old striker Eniola Aluko was absent.
Aluko, a key member of the squad, stayed at home rework for high school in psychology, media studies and English.
As the tournament drew near, stars of Coronation Street and Hollyoaks such as actor Bradley Walsh arrived were driven out to help with ticket sales £5 adult and £2.50 concessions. tickets for the EM 2022 range from £5 to £50.
The City of Manchester Stadium, which had hosted the Commonwealth Games three years earlier, was the site of England’s opening group match against Finland and a crowd of 29,092 watched 17-year-old Birmingham City striker Karen Carney score a 91st-minute winner .
Just before Carney’s goal sealed the 3-2 win, England’s media officer had gone down to the tunnel area to organize post-match television interviews.
“When Karen scored, I just ran backwards down the tunnel like David Pleat backwards. I shouted something and ran back to the bottom of the tunnel,” Stone recalls.
“The nearby Uefa media delegate took me aside and said: ‘We don’t usually do that’. I apologized and explained that I had worked with these players for so long and knew how much they wanted to shine.
“It wasn’t just three points in a group game. It’s what it could mean for the future development of the sport in England.”
Even at 17, Carney was not the youngest goalscorer at Euro 2005 – where Germany clinched their fourth of six consecutive European titles – an honor bestowed on Norway’s 16-year-old striker Isabell Herlovsen.
Still, the English teenager noticed a shift in public perception.
“It was the first time I saw people walking down the street wearing England shirts with our names on them,” Carney said. speaking to the Football Association website in 2018.
“The opening game at Manchester City was incredible. There were so many fans there.”
England’s tournament ended prematurely, however, after defeats to Denmark and Sweden – both at Blackburn’s Ewood Park – left them bottom of the table.
But despite the disappointment of the national team, women’s football in England was already gaining a new legion of fans.
A whole new world
Adam Bateman has good reason to remember Euro 2005. It was the first time he paid to attend a football game.
At the age of 21 he traveled 50 miles from his home in the Cheshire village of Mobberley to Blackburn to be among the 25,694 spectators at Ewood Park for England’s final group game against Sweden.
England team coach was stopped to get down as fans lined the approach.
Despite the 1-0 loss that eliminated Powell’s team, a whole new world opened up to Bateman. He’s lost count of how many women’s games he’s attended since then.
“Having an international tournament in this corner of the forest was very exciting at the time,” he said. “Faye White and Rachel Unitt were the players who stood out for me because they were no-nonsense defenders.
“Outside they were selling flags and I remember the atmosphere was really lively.”
Carney said Euro 2005 helped women’s football grow in England.
“I still get people saying that it was Euro 2005 that was the first time they had seen a women’s game and it got them hooked,” she said. “That’s good to hear.”
Bateman, who now holds a Manchester United WSL season ticket, was one of the first to queue when Euro 2022 tickets went on sale and spent £130 to see eight games in July.
When Norway captured hearts in Warrington
Midfielder Georgia Stanway has told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast that England’s current squad have let off steam while watching Love Island at their training camp ahead of Euro 2022.
“We have a small chill-out room. We turn on the TV and put out bean bags,” Stanway added.
Back in 2005, it was Big Brother that was the reality television ratings winner.
It was also the summer that saw Norway win hearts in the rugby league town of Warrington.
A letter published in the Warrington Guardian newspaper summed up the mood after the Halliwell Jones Stadium, which only opened the previous year, was selected as the venue.
“It is good to see that an event as prestigious as Euro 2005 will be hosting games in the city’s new venue,” wrote Debbie Sanderson from Orford.
The first game in Warrington, Germany’s 1-0 group win against Norway, was watched by 1,600 spectators. Ten days later, Norway’s 3-2 semi-final win over Sweden saw 5,722 spectators in attendance.
Norway’s coach was Bjarne Berntsen quoted as saying: “The people at Warrington have been great and I think they love our girls.”
Around 120,000 viewers watched the 15 matches over two weeks, all broadcast live by Eurosport, with the BBC showing England’s three group games and the final.
More than 3.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the hosts lose to Sweden, representing 20% of the English audience on a Saturday night.
That was music to Stone’s ears, who recalls having to call the media ahead of Euro 2005 to tell them the result of the England games so that it would appear in the morning papers.
However, Euro 2005 did not go entirely smoothly. Five of the 15 games could not attract 2,000 spectators.
And a few days before the final, controversy erupted when Lennart Johansson, then-President of Uefa, claimed women’s football sponsors could make money by promoting players’ physical attributes.
“Companies could use a sweaty, pretty looking girl to play on the floor in the rainy weather. It would sell.” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
His comments a year after his Fifa colleague Sepp Blatter called for players to be carried “tighter shorts”, provoked an angry reaction.
Despite this, Euro 2005 was celebrated as a success.
“I am sure that we will take women’s football to another level,” said Uefa Managing Director Lars-Christer Olsson at the end of the tournament.
Seventeen years later, Euro 2022 in England promises to be bigger and better than ever.