How do you memorialise a league that is still in its infancy? And what does it mean to capture the history of a sport that has been so fragmented across time? Those were the questions that sprang to mind on Monday night as Alex Scott, Gilly Flaherty, Steph Houghton and Rebecca Welch became the fourth cohort to be inducted into the Women’s Super League Hall of Fame.
Founded in 2021 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the WSL, it is described as “the highest individual award that can be given” by the league, and has been used to pay tribute to players, managers and referees.
The concept of a ‘Hall of Fame’ can feel a bit alien to an English audience. Unlike the versions you find in American sports which generate endless debate about who deserves entry, here they feel more like a polite rite of passage. The Premier League launched their own version in 2020 which comes with its own criteria around the number of appearances made or numerical contributions such as scoring over 100 goals.
The WSL’s criteria by contrast is more vague, requiring players and coaches to have been in the league for three years and having left a “positive impact and legacy”. In a departure from other Halls of Fame, it also allows for active players and coaches to be included, such as when Emma Hayes was inducted in 2021 while still managing Chelsea.
There is something jarring about a Hall of Fame for a league that only began in 2011, including active players or those who retired in the past year or two. But at the same time, the recent influx of fans to the women’s game means some of the names might already feel like ancient history.
The complexity of the WSL’s Hall of Fame reflects the artificial boundaries that exist in women’s football from when the ban ended to when the FA took over the women’s game to when the WSL was founded.
Flaherty playing for West Ham in the WSL in 2021 (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
“It’s hard because people were asking me about players who I would like to be inducted into the Hall of Fame,” said former West Ham captain Flaherty, speaking at an event to commemorate this year’s inductees.
“And the players who I wasn’t able to talk about are players that might have only played one season in the WSL, because the majority of their career was before that. The players that I played with at Arsenal have never got to experience the rewards of being a professional footballer — to have the money, the sponsorships, the fame.
“A lot of new fans are now coming into the game and there’s a lot of players that they don’t know anything about, the ones who were here at the very beginning of the WSL, the ones that played before the WSL was even created. I’ve obviously been retired for a couple of years now and there will be fans that have joined who will be like, ‘Who the hell is Gilly Flaherty?’
“When you talk about the women’s game, you talk about the here and now. It’s rare that you talk about it at the very start and the players who have got it to where it is. So now there are a lot of players that will miss out on being a part of this and getting recognised. That’s what makes it all the more important that you are not forgotten about.”
Former England captain Houghton agreed that it is important to give credit to those who could be forgotten. “There’s a lot of people who have done a lot of hard work to get the league where it is,” she said.
“There are a lot of players I have played with, who have made sacrifices, that will probably not be involved in the Hall of Fame. We have to really highlight those retired players to make sure that they know they are very much part of what we have done.”
Houghton scoring for England against Cameroon at the 2019 World Cup (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
In the past, the FA had a bit of an awkward relationship with memorialising women’s football, perhaps influenced by its institutional responsibility for the ban and its subsequent languid approach to the sport for much of the 50 years since it ended. They have recently worked to reward former Lionesses with caps to reflect their contribution to the national team, even though the early records are incomplete or unclear.
“It’s been so special over the last two years that we are seeing the generation before us being honoured,” says former Arsenal full-back Scott. “Before, there was no coverage on TV for them to get their moment or their England caps so it’s great that we’re still honouring those that pushed the game forward for our generation before we were doing it now for the generation that are going straight into a professional environment.
“There is a responsibility because we know that women’s football is in an amazing place but it still isn’t where we want it to be. We’ve got stuff like the Hall of Fame, but is there more we can be doing to make sure that we see the history of women’s football and the future of women’s football as a big holistic thing?
“That’s in the telling of the stories and that’s on us as broadcasters to show those stories so that the younger generations understand the fight and the struggle. It took us a long time to get here and we should celebrate it, but also to make people understand that this is why we are here. This is why we need to fight even more and not be satisfied with where we are at the moment.”
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(Top photo courtesy of the Barclays WSL Hall of Fame)
