WSL IT’S A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME
Whoever said that all publicity is good publicity obviously didn’t support West Ham United.
In October 2016, BBC News beamed footage of the Hammers’ female players pounding the pavements next to a busy, streetlit road, having apparently been barred from using the club’s own gym facilities. If that wasn’t bleak enough, chairman Stephen Hunt also claimed that the club – then competing in the third-tier FA Women’s Premier League Southern Division – had been prevented from finding their own sponsors, couldn’t afford travel to matches, and were even playing in the previous season’s kit (with the names of former players helpfully peeled off). Oh, and West Ham were ignoring his emails, too. “It’s beyond negligence,” huffed Hunt, drawing his daggers. “Someone had to say something and it may as well be me.”
In terms of PR, a public brawl was Pretty Rubbish. But from it came the swift action that Hunt had wanted all along. That month, he was gone. In a swift statement rebuking his many accusations, West Ham claimed to have already been in the process of joining the growing number of clubs taking their women’s teams ‘in house’ and out of the dark ages. Sure enough, they did just that: fast-forward to 2020, and the rebranded West Ham Women – led by the 20-year-old Jack Sullivan, son of majority owner David – are into their third WSL campaign and rising fast. Appointing the joint-chairman’s teenage son was ridiculed in 2017, but now the Irons are used for the BBC’s programme-making, rather than depressing news footage. Sullivan became the subject of Britain’s Youngest Football Boss in 2018, then his side starred in 2020 follow-up Squad Goals.
Football changes fast. Even so, in the UK, the women’s game is evolving with particular speed. A record 11.7 million viewers tuned in Christmas Day special – and 38,262 supporters watched November 2019’s North London Derby at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
