Special report: Girls, boys, and the thorny issue of mixed junior teams

New York Times

7 days ago

After England won the women's European Championship in 2022, the FA's insights team examined the footballing journeys of 37 senior Lionesses.
'The one thing every one of them had in common was that they had all played football with boys,' says Tessa Payne, the senior club talent pathway manager at the FA. 'For the majority of them, they'd actually been the only girl in a boys' team. Not only were they playing against boys, but with boys, which challenges them to another level because they've got to be able to keep up with the speed of play.'
Advertisement
Their involvement was two-fold. For some, playing in a boys' team was, Payne says, 'the only opportunity they had' in the absence of local girls' sides. Take, for instance, England and Manchester City winger Lauren Hemp, who, aged 15, appeared on ITV regional news when she moved to boys' grassroots football after the closure of Norwich City's centre of excellence (she also played for England and trained with a boys' team at Norwich).
'And secondly,' Payne continues, 'from a talent-development perspective, we recognise there are a number of benefits that come with girls having the opportunity to play with and against boys.'
Her colleague Emma Jenks, the FA's women's pathways manager, lists those benefits: a technical challenge — 'how they play with the ball, the decision-making and the speed of the game' — and, of course, physicality. 'With the younger age groups, that physical challenge is about the movement of players who are able to shift their body and change direction at an increased speed,' she says. 'With older age groups, it's a physical use of the body within the game.'
'Across Europe, playing against boys is the norm,' adds Payne. 'I think we're on a journey for that to be more normalised in this country, but we recognise that it may take time for people to be educated.'
Mixed football in England has always been a thorny topic, and a story that encapsulates shifting politics, stereotypes and issues around access.
Before 2010, girls could only play against or with boys up until the age of 11. Even in 2011, when the FA allowed girls and boys to play together at under-12 and under-13 levels, England had one of the lowest age limits for mixed football in the world. At that time, the cut-off level in Scotland, France and Portugal was under-15; in Germany and Italy, under-17; in Belgium, under-18; in Switzerland and the Netherlands, under-19. Denmark, Spain, Northern Ireland and Poland did not have any upper age limit.
In that climate, the girls who appealed against the situation found themselves stepping into political firestorms.
In the 1970s, 11-year-old Theresa 'Terri' Bennett sued the FA under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 after it banned her from competing in the East Midlands' Newark Youth League for her team, Muskham United. Her case attracted considerable global attention, including from The New York Times and UK children's TV news programme Newsround, and fan mail from around the world indicated significant support.
Advertisement
Bennett won, but the judgment was overturned on appeal. Worse, the FA's ban on women's football would not be lifted until 1991. The judgment in her case read: 'Women have not got the strength or stamina to run, to kick or to tackle and so forth.'
At age 13, Alyshia Walker was captaining a boys' team, Fauldhouse Foxes, just outside Edinburgh. Scotland's rules permitted mixed football up to the age of 15. In 2012, when Walker became the first female player to win the Scottish Youth FA Cup and qualified for the UK Four Nations Finals of the Tesco Cup in Birmingham, the English FA's rules prevented her from playing. She was allowed only to take part in the warm-up and the coin toss.
In 2006, 10-year-old Minnie Crutwell met with UK government members of parliament and FA officials to ask them to consider raising the cut-off beyond the age of 11 and allow her to play with two south London boys' teams past her next birthday. England was the only country that had a blanket ban in place for mixed football at under-12s. Crutwell's request won the support of Britain's then chancellor (a government job viewed as second in importance only to that of prime minister) Gordon Brown and other MPs, who wrote in a report that the rule was 'an artificial barrier to girls' potential development — and a possible deterrent to more females taking up the sport'.
It is unsettling to consider teenage girls in the crossfire of what became a quasi-culture war, with football, and their ability to compete physically, almost a proxy for broader ideas about sex, gender and women and girls' roles in society.
The FA's response to Crutwell's campaign was to commission a team from Brunel University to oversee a one-year research project into the key issues surrounding mixed-gender football. Throughout the 2007-08 season, there would be trials at under-12, under-13 and under-14 level (the study was then extended for a further two seasons).
Advertisement
Headed by Dr Laura Hills, now the division lead for sport, health and exercise sciences at Brunel, it concluded there was 'a considerable overlap between boys and girls in relation to size, motor skill development and ability between the ages of 11 and 13'. The FA also appointed an independent company to conduct a risk assessment and found that no girl participating in any of the mixed-gender teams studied had required any treatment for injuries.
'It was quite controversial — much more than I even imagined,' recalls Hills. 'In the beginning, mixed football was seen as very, very unusual. There was a lot of resistance. I'm from the States, so the link to masculinity surprised me. The idea that football was for boys was still quite pervasive. I think it was partly biological, but partly social ideas about what girls and boys should be spending their time doing.
'But there was no question the girls were OK, and they were playing. After the policy started changing, there was very little resistance. People got used to the idea.'
Hills' work involved watching matches and interviewing girls, boys, parents and coaches.
'At the grassroots level, people were really in favour of it,' she says. 'Most of the girls had played with their teams for quite a few years and then they were told they couldn't play anymore. They didn't really understand why. It was all working, and they were all friends.
'In the surrounding environment, it was really mixed. We talked to different CEOs and league officials, and they were more against the change. One of the opposing views was that it would be detrimental to the girls' game — that all the good girls would go and play on the boys' teams and there wouldn't be a strong girls' league.
'There weren't as many opportunities for girls to play at a high level. In some of the more rural places, there weren't sufficient girls to form teams, so that's why they were doing it. Another was that girls wouldn't be safe; that the physical differences were too great and it was too risky for girls. One that never really played out was about changing rooms. When we were doing our research, players all came in their kit and left in their kit.'
Advertisement
Parents and coaches often dismissed safety concerns, pointing out that they wouldn't 'put people on the teams if they're not at the level'. Often, Hills' interviewees were eager to challenge assumptions around differences between the sexes and look at 'where players' skills, knowledge, ability, attitude, motivation overlap'.
Most preconceptions and misconceptions emphasised differences over shared experiences, Hills reported. If parents and administrators mainly encountered sport on television, where sex segregation is automatic at elite level, mirroring that in the grassroots game would feel intuitive.
'There are assumptions that boys are stronger or more aggressive or more competitive,' says Hills. 'The idea that there's a need to separate men's and women's and girls' and boys' sport is really strong. We separate them in all situations, and there may be some situations where that's not necessary.
'A lot of times, we put gender first before we think about levels of experience, ability, understanding of the game, social skills and social information, or even what the priorities of an event are. Is it just about the competition or is it actually about learning to play together and developing more positive ideas about equality?'.
Amid the trial, Niamh McKevitt would become the first girl in England to play mixed-sex football all the way through to under-18s. In her 2015 book Playing With The Boys, she recounts sexism that almost defies belief in its frequency, from the PE teacher who denied her a place on the school boys' team to the parents who mocked their sons for not being able to match her skill.
'She said when she turned up, people looked at her like a monkey had turned up to play football,' her father Steve tells The Athletic. 'It's not like they're mean to the monkey or don't like the monkey, but they're shocked and surprised that a monkey wants to and can play football. After about five minutes, the novelty that there's a girl playing wears off. It wasn't that we particularly wanted to play boys' football; it was that there were no opportunities to play women's football, really.'
Niamh persisted because she felt the opposition in her girls' league wasn't challenging enough. She sometimes struggled to connect socially with her male team-mates, and encountered coaches in the women's game cynical about her background in mixed football because they thought the boys' game was overly reliant on physicality and the girls' superior technically.
Advertisement
When Niamh herself became involved in the mixed-sex trial, she was the only girl researchers were able to verify as playing at under-15s level and knew the potential impact on future generations. 'It felt weird to think that any extension to the rule… would be down to what the researchers made of my performances,' she wrote.
Two researchers would travel up to seven hours to watch her play and stand at the side of the pitch with clipboards, Steve recalls.
In practical terms, Niamh was left in limbo at the end of each season as she waited to see if the FA would extend the cut-off for mixed football.
Steve was constantly searching for new teams and backup options. His daughter left one club after their new coach favoured his son, who played the same position as her. 'And it's very easy to drop a girl,' Steve says. 'I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I just felt constantly frustrated. Uncertainty really clouded her experience. Your kid just wants to play football and you're having to tell her she has to play against kids who can't kick snow off a rope. Her younger sister didn't have any of those problems.'
When Niamh was playing, there were 110 teams in the local boys' league compared with around 10 in the girls' version. One girls' division has become four in the years since.
There is a broader hope among those who champion mixed football that boys will grow up with more enlightened views of girls' capabilities. The concern then is that the first tranche of girls will become de facto representatives of their whole sex — Niamh notes that 'if (male team-mates) Dan or Sheriyar screwed up… it was because they weren't good enough; if I screwed up, it was because girls aren't good enough to play football' — or that the others in the side will view them as exceptions among a gender that cannot play the game.
Would those misconceptions exist if all leagues were mixed from the outset? Will girls always have to pass a certain threshold to win acceptance?
Advertisement
The role grassroots has to play in shaping wider societal attitudes is a broad debate, but a worthwhile one given the last generation of female footballers drew ire even after they had graduated to professional careers.
The United States Women's National Team's landmark equal pay case met resistance online from men who gleefully unearthed that USWNT players had lost 5-2 to an under-15s boys' team from MLS side FC Dallas in 2017 — a fact that was used to discredit their World Cup and Olympic wins, as well as the validity of women's football as a whole. The same happened to Australia as they reached the semi-finals of the 2023 World Cup, with social media users reposting news stories of their 7-0 defeat by a Newcastle Jets under-16s boys' side seven years earlier.
What these users do not post is the pages of former England captain Steph Houghton's 2024 autobiography Leading From The Back where she recalls how the early Manchester City Women teams would train with the club's under-18s boys' side that included future Footballer of the Year Phil Foden. 'It made no difference that we were women; there was a real respect there,' Houghton wrote. 'You weren't looked down upon because you were female. When it got to training, there were no prisoners. It was full contact, and it was competitive, and that made me improve so much.'
Houghton observed there was little difference in terms of technical ability but the boys were far quicker, so the women had to move the ball faster and move into position earlier.
Earlier this year, 17-year-old midfielder Vera Jones signed her first professional contract with Chelsea, having spent most of her career playing with and against boys in Barry Town's academy in south Wales, a rare instance of a player entering the top level of the women's game directly from a boys' youth setup. Her junior career involved county and girls' teams before joining Barry as an under-13, after which she represented both Wales and England at women's youth level.
Her time at Barry coincided with the age when, in her former under-15s coach Rhys Evans' view, boys begin to mature physically. Some shoot up in height while others become more powerful and can cover ground more quickly. Jones was still among the smallest when playing with other girls for England.
'If we all had a magic machine, you'd just put everyone at the same height,' Evans says. 'But this is where you've got to find a way of dealing with the game in another way. It would have been easy, when you look at size and everything like that, to drop her before under-16s and say, 'Go and play in the women's game — play what you're going to play in the future'. But she stood by it and the academy manager was sticking by her to carry on that route.
Advertisement
'I tried to look at Vera's game and how we could help. The main thing was dealing with the physicality. There were times when she was trying to throw herself about and it helped her, but her biggest thing was her technical ability and how quickly she moved the ball. We said, 'When you're at No 10, showing in the pockets, try not to get into the battle. If you want to, get stuck in, guard the ball, win the free kick. But try to make everything in certain areas of the pitch about one, two touch, moving that ball on quickly'.
'It always revolves around space and time. Can you find space early? Are you looking to get space away from players to allow yourself to get a touch, and then release that ball quickly, so you're not getting in a battle?'.
Amid her research for the FA, Hills pointed out that if a governing body mandatorily splits the sexes, they must make sure the girls' game is well-resourced with sufficient infrastructure. Previously, English football was guilty of driving girls away from boys' leagues without providing an equal alternative in the area. Every issue — from the smaller pool of players to the lack of local girls' teams — is a symptom of chronic underinvestment in girls' and women's football over decades.
Even now, this causes issues for the more talented girls.
Manchester United academy player Evie Edmondson, who is 10, began her football career in boys' grassroots and academy teams (she was part of the Academy One boys' side that won the Junior Premier League last year against clubs linked to professional sides) but tried girls' football when sports restarted after the Covid-19 pandemic. Edmondson's strengths lie in her vision and passing range, but she struggled to play alongside girls who did not read the game as she did.
'Where we live is probably a factor,' her father Leigh says. 'There is only really one girls' team.'
One academy wanted to start a girls' team and moved Evie into their ranks to raise the standard. The girls' development centres at local professional clubs were also too easy for her. 'It was like, 'Dad, they don't even know how to pass the ball',' Leigh says. 'You can't just take a kid somewhere to play football if they're not enjoying it.'
Advertisement
The girls' teams, Leigh says, were more physical. 'I think it's because boys, up until a certain age, are a little timid, whereas the girls didn't care about it. She found that part a little bit more challenging. At Bradford City and Manchester United, I would say the girls are a little bit tougher.'
Evie was scouted for United by a boys' academy scout who happened to see her at boys' tournaments; United is 'the first time Evie has actually really quite enjoyed' girls' football, Leigh says, 'because she doesn't stand out anymore. She's definitely up there, but there are some very, very good players.'
At Evie's United enrollment, the Edmondsons learned that her team will play in a boys' league in their age group. Then at around 14, they will play boys' sides one year younger. 'They want them playing against the best physical team because the one word that came out of their induction was 'strength',' says Leigh.
Payne was the technical director for Arsenal's Regional Talent Club, overseeing the pathway for junior female players to their first team, when the FA first allowed clubs to enter girls' teams into boys' leagues in 2016 — firstly at under-10 and under-12, and later at under-14s and under-16. Arsenal took advantage, finding local opposition that matched their players' abilities. That tailored, strategic approach is far removed from the prescriptivism of the outright ban.
'It took a little bit of work to support clubs and players and parents to understand the benefits of it, but over the past 10 years, we've seen a significant shift in people recognising how beneficial that could be,' says Payne. Playing in local mixed leagues also meant girls' academy players didn't have to travel as far. Arsenal further encouraged their most able girls to train with some of their boys' academy sides.
'We want to grow the girls' game but we also want to, and have a responsibility to, develop the next generation of Lionesses that are ready to compete on the world stage, that are ready to be European champions again,' adds Jenks. 'We don't look at this in isolation and think mixed football is the only part of the game we need to grow and develop. We look at it all and say, 'How are we best going to stretch these players so that they can be the future Lionesses?'.'
Key to that has been improving opportunities for girls to be exposed to football and enter elite environments earlier, through work with schools and grassroots clubs.
Advertisement
'We recognise that our system previously wasn't wholly accessible to girls to be able to enter at those earlier phases,' adds Jenks. 'Probably in the past, girls were coming into the game at a later stage than boys. We've tripled the number of girls now in a talent system from what we had just two years ago. The consequence is that girls are exposed to better coaching, training and playing environments at a much earlier age.'
In 2024, Queens Park Ladies Under-12s finished unbeaten as the only girls' team in the Bournemouth Youth Football League.
When their achievement attracted media attention, manager Toby Green was taken aback to read some of the headlines. 'The papers were writing stuff like, 'Take that, boys! We smashed you and all the boys were crying!' None of that ever happened. What happened was the boys were always respectful. We had no issues whatsoever. The boys have been brilliant, but the papers don't want to write that.'
The FA allows girls' teams to play in age groups below their own should they enter mixed or boys' leagues. The key, Green says, is granting coaches the freedom to find appropriate opponents.
'If you've got really, really good girls that have been playing since they were five and the boys' puberty hasn't kicked in yet, boys and girls should pretty much, on a football pitch, be treated as equals,' he says. 'But if you're new to football and you're a bit timid, you probably don't want to go into boys' league, because at the first slide-tackle you're just going to go, 'I don't fancy this'.
'Other teams this year are in the boys' league. One has really struggled because they didn't have these foundations, as five-, six- and seven-year-olds, of playing against boys. But if you've been playing against boys since you were five, it's easy and it's normal.'