Browse all

What Women Want

This Fan Girl's travel through english female supporters

What Women Want This Fan Girl's travel through english female supporters

Football and women have always been one of the most stereotyped binomial in sports culture. And no, it’s not just an Italian thing. Although in our country people ironize about teaching the offside to girlfriends and being reprimanded by wives for going to stadiums all the time, the rest of the world isn’t so different, even if maybe with different shades. Just look at the image of supporters women the international tournaments give us, when the cameras holds on the cutest girls (aka: undressed). 

England is no different, even if the women attendance at stadiums is growing every year. So Amy Drucquer and Laura Blake, two best friends with the passion for football, decided to start This Fan Girl, a web portal which shows the true face of women who support their teams every week. Not easy task, as the attitude towards female fans is always quite suspicious. “I think it’s common for people to think of females as not real football fans”, they say, “When men find out you're interested in football, it’s almost never accepted straight away and you find you have to come armed to a conversation with a library of facts and statistics to prove your interest.” But with This Fan Girl you have no models, just happy faces supporting Manchester City, Arsenal or Watford, with the sun or the rain.

With all the memories from their childhood, Amy and Laura decided to start this project with the beginning of the 16/17 season. Every Saturday the travel around Britain, visiting different stadiums with just a camera to immortalize women at the gates. Which obviously reflect the true face of English supporters, very far from the stereotype given by Google’s research. In Premier League and Championship’s stadiums, every sort of socio-cultural background mixes up, all eliminated for 90 minutes when the only thing that matters is what’s happening on the pitch. “This Fan Girl right now is about shining a light on female fans, but it runs a little deeper. Essentially, whatever it is you want to do as a woman should be encouraged without question. If we can unite as women in love for football in a premiership context then we should be able to support girls who are interested in the game through their school years. It's about changing the mindset”, they say in a recent interview.

A very interesting project, which will grow over and over in the next months and, hopefully, in the next years. Original and authentic, a photographic tale of fan women - and they are many - who crowd the English grounds, from the Vitality Stadium to the Stadium of Light. You only have to follow them on Instagram and enjoy the ride!