Not quite the homecoming they hoped for

BLUES WOMEN GO ACROSS THE PARK - BUT THE OUTCOME CAN'T MATCH LATS WEEK'S ANFIELD GLORY

- By CHRIS BEESLEY

PERHAPS Everton Women should have moved into Anfield instead?

Whereas the Blues’ female footballers have triumphed six times in a row against their Liverpool counterparts across Stanley Park with Ornella Vignola becoming the first player representing the club there to net a hat-trick since Dixie Dean in 1931, their inaugural competitive game at Goodison Park since they took up permanent residence at the first purpose-built football ground in England and venue for the most (male) top flight matches, ended up in a 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in a contest in which Brian Sorensen’s side always found themselves very much second best.

Indeed, in contrast to their away day successes against the Reds, following this reversal, Everton Women have now only won one of their last half dozen fixtures at the Grand Old Lady, and that was also against Liverpool.

New owners The Friedkin Group of course come from the USA where women’s ‘soccer’ has got a rich pedigree and they have got big plans for the Blues’ female footballers.

With the big four domestic team sports of American football, baseball, basketball and (ice) hockey commanding the attentions of many male athletes in that country, women’s football has been able to flourish without the prejudices and chauvinistic attitudes that have sometimes held it back on these shores where the men’s game is king and the Premier League is the most lucrative domestic division on the planet.

But after having to play catch-up with some other nations, women’s football is now very much on the up here with England having won back-to-back European Championships and curiously nine of the Lionesses were either former Everton players/ and/or Merseysiders.

The huge attendances that women’s club sides are enjoying in London and even to a lesser extent in Manchester, haven’t yet been matched in this footballing hotbed for the men’s game - but that hasn’t always been the case.