http://newstatesman.i2p/long-reads/2020/07/only-girl-league
Deformed by my early experience of being an oddity for liking football, the growing popularity of the women’s game makes me, or the girl I was, less special. Though, in the Bend It Like Beckham era, excelling at football as a girl couldn’t guarantee a glamorous future – not in this country, anyway – it did make you distinctive, distinctive enough to be, like Jess Bhamra, a heroine.