Women are in with a sporting chance Print E-mail
Written by Paul Richmond-Darbey, 2006   
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Certain sports are attracting women as never before. Paul Richmond-Darbey looks at what’s hot and what’s not in the fitness stakes Women are moving into traditional men’s domains in the battle for a fitter, better quality of life. Take football, for instance. So many women and girls are playing football today that women’s soccer is the fastest-growing sport in England; in fact, soccer is said to be the number one sport for women, displacing netball. Mind you, the girls don’t command those millions of pounds the male soccer stars achieve – most women pay to play.

“Research has shown that more than one million girls under 15 participate in some form of football each year,” says the Football Association, which took over running the women’s and girls’ game in 1993, a year after the successful film Bend It Like Beckham began to popularise it among girls.

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Footballer Karen Carney, seen here during an England-Iceland game, is an inspiration to football-mad girls evreywhere
Female participation in football in England was actively discouraged by the FA until quite recently. From 1920 until 1970 women were banned from using its grounds. The scale and speed of this explosion of interest in English female football is demonstrated by the facts: in 1993 there were just 80 girls’ teams. In England today there are more than 7,000 teams and over 100,000 registered players competing regularly.

Run girl, run

So many women and girls are on a get fit kick these days that if you go for a stroll in the park you could be in danger of being mowed down by female joggers. Inspirational performances by Dame Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe, along with the London Olympics on the horizon, have given running a major profile boost. Some 14,000 or so women ran in the last Flora London Marathon in April 2006.

Paula Radcliffe, the first woman to finish in 2005, covered the 26 miles and 385 yards in a world record 2h 17min 42sec. You don’t have to be that fast if you want to enter but you do have to show you are good enough. The organisers have a “Good for Age” system of qualifying times, open to UK residents, so that marathon runners with fast times for their age can enter: Women aged 18–49, 3hrs 15mins to 3hrs 45mins; aged 50–54, under 4hrs; 55–59, under 4hrs 15mins; 60–64, under 4hrs 30mins; 65–69, under 5hrs 30mins; 70+, under 6hrs 30mins.

Not up to those high standards? You can still do some good for yourself and others by joining in one of the nearly 230 Race for Life events. These are short, 5km runs staged all over the country to raise money for Cancer UK. There is sure to be one near you.

Race for Life started 12 years ago with a race in Battersea Park, London, when 680 women came together and raised £36,000 in sponsorship. Now Race for Life has become the UK’s biggest women-only fund-raising event. Since it began, over two million women have raised over £100 million for Cancer UK. This year, they hope to get 750,000 women running to raise £46 million.

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Four keen rowers from Tees, Gill Stiller, Liz Leigh, Janet Wilkinson, and Ester Takacs, aka The Tena Ladies, competed in the Henley's Veteran Regatta 2006, after winning the Tena Zest for Life bursary.
You can get active, healthy and happy even if you live a busy life. Make walking your everyday sport. Just go for a walk at lunchtime or get off the bus one stop early and walk the rest of the way to work. As you get fit enough, you’ll feel brave enough to join a club to play, perhaps, badminton or tennis. To help you find somewhere to play, call your local council offices, or look up their website.

Don’t fancy walking or running? Then how about cycling? Three-quarters of all personal journeys are less than five miles long – that’s half an hour on a bike. Switching these short journeys from car to bicycle will benefit your health and your community. You’ll be helping to reduce noise and air pollution as well as traffic congestion.

Cycling regularly will improve your fitness – your strength, stamina, aerobic fitness and general muscle function will all be improved. Cycling, like swimming, is a low impact activity and one of the safest ways to exercise without risk of over-exertion. It’s one of the more comfortable forms of physical activity for those who are new to exercise, allowing most people to get fit easily and safely without undue physical strain. Feeling tired? Just stop, sit down in the saddle and relax.

The Government even has a website (activeplaces.com) to help you, listing over 50,000 places to get fit. The site is costing about £5 million to set up, funded by Sport England and investment from the Big Lottery Fund. The Activeplaces database includes information on a wide range of facilities – sports halls, swimming pools, synthetic turf pitches, ski slopes, ice rinks, health and fitness, indoor tennis centres, indoor bowls, golf courses and athletics tracks and more will be added.

Tessa Jowell, who is Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, as well as Minister for Women, says: “We want to make it easier for children and adults alike to discover the wealth of sports facilities near to them. Now no one has an excuse for not going down to their sports centres or club to become healthier.” Well, she’s wrong there.

Everyone can find plenty of excuses for not taking exercise. Here’s a selection from the Women’s Sports Foundation: “It’s unfeminine... I’m too old...don’t like how I look... too self-conscious... don’t like being watched... no childcare... no money... kit too expensive... club fees too expensive... sports too competitive... no time... no transport... not safe on streets at night... sexual harassment around sports venues...”


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