England's Alessia Russo attempts a shot on goal during the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 Group A match at Old Trafford, Manchester. Picture date: Wednesday July 6, 2022.
England 1-0 Austria
by Adam Millington
at Old Trafford
FORGET the match for a minute and just soak in what actually happened. 68,871 people paid to watch a women’s international tournament take place in England. Old Trafford was packed to the rafters to watch the Lionesses.
Cast your gaze back to 2017 when games were on Channel 4 and the WSL was still only semi-professional. Could anyone truly have envisaged a near future in which this would be the case?
Back in a time when only few newspapers or broadcasters took women’s sport seriously, would anyone have thought that every seat in the Old Trafford press box would be filled with journalists from across the globe who had travelled to see this occasion?
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