It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Women’s football has always been promoted as the antidote to the ills of the men’s game. Without the corrupting money, the diving or the scandal. Well, there’s still no money, as Sunderland proved by banishing their Women’s Super League (WSL) One club from the club’s training ground last week to make way for the men’s youth leagues. Coverage of women’s football is also still hampered by an unbreakable vicious circle of editors not believing it generates “hits” but not putting enough stories out there to be “hit.”

Yet, followers of the game always believed they were watching something somehow more Corinthian in spirit.