Cambridgeshire grassroots coach tells girls 'never to be afraid' in fight against discrimination
His daughter was recently discriminated for wanting to play football at school
A girls' football coach in Cambridgeshire whose daughter was questioned for playing the game at school is calling for more work to tackle discrimination at grassroots.
Ben Crabb picked up his daughter from school, to find out that when she wanted to play football one lunchtime, the boys she was going to play with asked why.
In a message sent to parents of the players he coaches in Haddenham Rovers FC's under 16 girls team, Ben said the boys asked his daughter "'why is a girl playing football? Girls can't play football, they don't know anything about it.'"
In reply, Ben's daughter said that "my dad is a football coach" and was allowed to join in.
"This is a reminder that, as if we didn't know the world is full of discrimination for girls and young women, and just because Bethany's dad is a football coach, that does not make it okay," he told parents.
"They (the girls) should never just sit down, shut up and take discrimination; never be afraid to stand up, be counted and say 'I am who I am, this is what I do, and I enjoy it'."
Government pledges millions to help access into women's and girls grassroots
Ben's message comes as the government announced it would pledge £30 million to deliver around 30 state-of-the-art 3G pitches in England to support women's and girls' teams.
The pitches, to be delivered by the government, the Premier League and the Football Foundation, will be funded in recognition of England Lionesses' Euro 2022 and World Cup success this year.
The move is also part of the government's target to get 2.5 million more adults and 1 million more young people active by 2030.
"Even though the Lionesses were magnificent, we are still seeing discrimination within the women's game," Ben said.
"There is more acceptance now, but it's still not quite where it needs to be.
"We're seeing at school level where girls might first come across a football before taking it up as a hobby; they want to play at breaks and lunchtimes and still being told by boys 'you can't play, this is a boys' game.
"There does need to be more money spent on actively changing that narrative, whether that be through clubs having the money to go into schools and deliver education, or recruitment to say 'come and play with us, we're an all-girls team and we'd love to have you'."
Progression of girls' grassroots game 'seen improvements'
Currently, girls' grassroots teams such as Ben's are training on 3G pitches at schools and shared by other clubs.
That includes equipment, which does mean Ben's team are not guaranteed to use everything they want for a training session.
But he hopes that the £30m fund will improve on this.
"I feel the progression of the girls' game at grassroots has seen some significant improvements and is becoming more widely accepted within the football community as a whole," Ben said.
"I do feel the development of grassroots football has been hampered by the fact sometimes facilities are not available or prohibitively expensive for some clubs.
"The facilities will have dedicated changing rooms and equipment for all teams that book onto them; that will be a significant advancement over the current shared facilities we have now.
"A lot of the cost is shouldered by the club and the players; this can be prohibitive so if it's possible some of these 3G pitches are able to offer discounted training rates, that would probably push up the participation rate significantly."
This month the FA and anti-discrimination group Kick It Out launched a plan to tackle discrimination and serious misconduct in grassroots football.
Research from that plan found discrimination incidents in grassroots football could be more than double the reported 1,894 incidents for the 2021-22 season.