How England's Lionesses are changing the game for girls

In five years, 100,000 more girls have taken up the sport in England, shattering myths about their relative abilities

- Tristan McConnell

Wooh! Good finish," calls out coach Ian Westlake as 10-year-old TJ fires a shot at goal. "Set it," he shouts to the next player, "and then run. You want to come off your left foot."

It's halfway through the Kesgrave Kestrels' regular 90-minute Thursday evening training session - somewhere between the opening drills and the finishing game - and a brisk southwesterly wind is blowing in from the Suffolk coast, 15km away, gusting across the pitch of blue artificial turf.

Volunteer coaches Westlake, Dan Spurling and Paul Berry formed the team three years ago, but really it was started by their daughters. Summer, TJ and Hettie had played together at one of more than 1,700 FA-backed Wildcats football centres established in 2017 to bring football closer to young girls and introduce them to the game.

When they were old enough to join the local league, their fathers, a little reluctantly, raised their hands. Today, their daughters are among 150 girls playing in 11 teams across the age groups at Kesgrave Kestrels, inspired by the sportsmanship and success of England's national women's team, the Lionesses.

While the parents, gathered on the sidelines in sunglasses and T-shirts, grew up with routine dismay at England men's national footballing defeats, their daughters live in another dimension: one of women and winning.