Newcastle United – The Future of Football is Female.

Sunday 31st July, Wembley stadium. Women’s football, or ‘football’ as it’s now more accurately known, brings the entire nation together in a moment of magical chaotic glory. Chloe Kelly’s scrambled winner, her iconic celebration, and the beautifully authentic interviews at the end of the game have already become stuff of footballing folklore, whilst up in the BBC studio, staunch Newcastle United fan and world class TV presenter Gabby Logan was posing a question to the millions of people tuning in from across the country – ‘is this a game-changing moment?‘

One would think it inevitable that the success of the England team would lead to a boost in funding for women and girls playing the beautiful game across the country. Unfortunately however, this logical and seemingly obvious next step in the right direction requires direct action from Her Majesty’s Government – and that is a group of people I wouldn’t trust to help my Gran with an extra 5p for the bus home on a rainy evening, let alone to green light a whole heap of funding towards sporting equality.

But there is a groundswell, and there is a momentum. Yes Gabby, I believe this is a game changing moment. Not only for people to realise that football is literally a game that anyone and everyone can play, but also that watching football (as the women have taught those of us too closed-minded to realise before) doesn’t have to be a mono-cultural experience. It doesn’t have to be antagonistic, jingoistic, tribal, aggressive and threatening. Yes, there will always be a place for flicking the V’s at an away end when your left back scores a last minute winner, and screaming ‘f*** off’ to a referee when they send off your centre mid for a flying two-footed tackle to an opponent’s midriff, but there’s also space for joy. Everything about Sunday’s final felt joyful, felt good, felt worthy. It felt important. There was a universal feeling that no matter the result, the game itself was the real winner, and England lifting the trophy was just the cherry on top of that cake. For what it’s worth, Jill Scott screaming ‘F*** off you f***ing prick’ in slow motion was the icing on top of the cherry. Aggressive, but also joyful.

All of which means that there could be no better time for Newcastle United to announce a boost in funding for our own women’s team, as has been reported. Since the takeover, Amanda Staveley and the consortium have made no secret of their desire to invest heavily in the Lady Mags, and their intentions were thoroughly justified by the magnificent fan turnout at St James’ Park towards the end of last season. As always, there will be question marks over the source of funding when it comes to spending on Tyneside, but you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who thinks this is misguided way to spend the Saudi cash. NUFC Women deserve every chance, every privilege and every bit of support that the men have, and I am delighted to see that our new owners seem to share this intention.

Without wanting to sound too much like the dying parent of a spider bitten superhero – with great power, comes great responsibility. Newcastle United now have great power, not just financially. As a club, we are growing and expanding, perhaps with relatively small steps at this present time, but given the appointments already made and the plans set out by the ownership, this club has it’s eye firmly set on being a leading power not just in transfer spending, but in footballing innovation, progressive business practice and modern ideas for running a sporting institution.

Putting to one side the source of the money (just for a moment) every fan in the country and beyond should be happy that one of the world’s richest clubs is looking to spend its money in this fashion. One of football’s great morally corrupt, disaster capitalist, human-rights-abusing-state-funded monstrosities is not just looking to swing it’s proverbial member around by signing an overpriced egotistical striker, paying them a wage equivalent to every NHS worker in the country combined before loaning them out to the MLS when they realise they’re actually past it. No, instead the club are looking for ways to make the game itself more inclusive, more welcoming, and more progressive. For everyone. Even non-NUFC fans ought to admit that this can only be a good thing.

During the search for a new CEO, Staveley stated that she did not want to bring in someone from a different Premier League club who would just say ‘this is how we did it there and we’ll do exactly the same while we’re here‘. The main prerequisite of the new CEO was a desire to think differently, to see football as it is in the modern age, and to be able to see new ideas and inspirations, new ways of working, that make sense in 2022. The women’s team has to be a part of that. England (the team and the nation) showed us that on that last Sunday in July. From now on, there is no football without the women. Any top club without a women’s team should be seen as an outlier, an oddity, backwards and old-fashioned.

Yes, NUFC Women have a mountain to climb, up several leagues before they even get sight of the WSL. But they are pointing in the right direction, and have an ownership ready to pour rocket fuel into the tank. It’s pretty exciting. As Gabby Logan signed off with –

‘You think it’s all over? It’s only just begun’.

Ed Cole

Note – TRUE FAITH would like to increase coverage of Newcastle United Women – if you are interested in helping out in that area contact us on podcast@true-faith.co.uk’