Woman’s Euros 2022 6-31 July 2022

I had a very enjoyable long weekend city break which culminated of course with the final. Good natured crowd with a mixture of both seasoned and novice supporters. Impressed with the German supporters who were still cheering and waving their flags after the final whistle which must have been quite a new experience for them! Maybe yet to sink in that they had actually lost?

Good game between two sides who were generally well matched and the result could have gone either way. Ellen White perhaps could have done better with her chance in the first half which was the best opportunity for either side. Thought it was in until it went over. Referee certainly got on the wrong side of the crowd for those 2 quickly issued yellow cards and was booed off at half-time.

England have a very strong bench and our manager seems to be spot-on on getting the timing right for bringing the right players on as the game dictates. Toon scored shortly after coming on with a lovely through ball from Walsh and at the time I shouted “she’s on” as I was pretty high up and more or less directly in line with her. Took her chance really well with a delightful chip over their keeper. We then really needed to defend well against a good German team who were going to throw absolutely everything at us, don’t think the intensity was quite there, including defending from the front which I think we failed to do and the Germans were able to get a well deserved goal back after previously hitting the crossbar when you did start to think it may be our day. The crowd were subjected to the the same goal music and fanfare after the equaliser.

It was a scrappy goal to win it in extra time but poor defending allowed Kelly to poke the ball home to the ecstasy of the home fans and prevent it going to penalties where a very predictable outcome against the Germans was on the cards. Bit nervy waiting for the final whistle but the last four minutes were well seen out in the corner and you can see the German players getting more and more visibly frustrated.

Had a good view of the celebrations as the players directly faced us for the presentations and their celebrations in front of the fans as all the well known hits reverberated around the stadium. Took a bit to get onto a very packed tube and a relief to finally get off at Waterloo. Thankfully the train disruption didn’t impact the Jubilee line

An incredibly successful tournament for the women’s game and England in particular as both attendance and viewing figures were smashed as both the profile and public interest has risen exponentially.

Please to hear our club captain Danni Wyatt mention that a lot of people called TUFC yesterday to enquire about sponsoring the women’s team where until recently the players themselves had to pay subs just for the privilege of playing for the club and hopefully both this and all those barriers in the women’s game will now start to full. Very pleased to see Danni managed to blag a ticket for the game a few days before the final.