Why Fran Alonso's Celtic are a team to be proud of

Like many other Celtic supporters I was transfixed by the tense, three-way battle for supremacy in the SWPL.

As the season built towards its end, it became clear that we weren’t just watching a climactic struggle between Glasgow City, Celtic and Rangers. We were also watching what might prove to be a watershed moment for women’s football in Scotland. 

In these last few weeks several attendance records have tumbled with almost 16,000 watching the Celtic women’s team defeat Hearts 2-0 at Parkhead in the final round of league fixtures of the season. That eclipsed the previous record from the last SWPL game at the venue when 9,553 watched Celtic Women defeat Glasgow City. That win set up the last-day drama where the Hoops were within a minute of winning the title before Glasgow City’s last-minute winner against Rangers wrested the title from their grasp. 

It probably won’t come as much of a consolation for Fran Alonso's side but their deeds this campaign and the quality of their football have offered many supporters a viable alternative when the men’s team are playing away from home or on a different day. This is a team that all Celtic supporters can get behind and be rewarded with some very good football played.

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Work commitments this season meant that I missed five of the Celtic men’s home games. On two of those occasions, though, I decided to get my Hoops transfusion watching Celtic Women. Next season I’ve made a pledge to myself: that I’ll be a regular attendee at the women’s games in their own right and take my granddaughter with me. 

It’s important too that Celtic as a club build on the foundations being put in place by Alonso and his coaching staff. Might the club consider including a number of women’s games on the men's season ticket? Would it be viable to incentivise supporters to attend the women’s matches when it comes to deciding who is granted a ticket for large, set-piece occasions in the men’s game like cup semi-finals and finals?

This isn’t to be condescending to the women by considering them as mere fodder to obtaining a ticket. Having watched the development of the women’s game in Scotland and across the world, I think supporters who haven’t previously taken it seriously have a treat in store. 

The skill-levels, tactical strategies and all-round physical fitness in the women’s game have taken massive leaps forward in recent years. I first became aware of this while writing a twice-weekly diary on the 2017 Women’s European Championships in Holland for The National. I followed this up with a similar arrangement for the 2019 Women’s World Cup held in France. 

It became clear while observing these matches that the women’s game was regularly beginning to exhibit those characteristics which make the football the most popular sport in the world. It was quick and athletic and had breath-taking moments of real artistry in games between evenly-matched teams. It was clear too from the attendances that women’s football was becoming attractive to a significant global audience. 

This has since been reinforced by the record-breaking crowd of 90,000-plus at a recent match between the women’s teams of Barcelona and Real Madrid. Indeed in all those countries which produce the greatest teams in the men’s game, women’s football enjoys high levels of popular appreciation. In England, the advent of a fully professional league has been rewarded with high attendance levels. 

Nor should we be discouraged by the number of women’s games that result in high, one-sided score-lines. These still occur in the men’s game and at the highest level: witness some of the results in European club football over the last few years. 

And besides, when Scottish men’s football was developing in its infancy such score-lines were also commonplace. If you were to watch an entire 90 minutes of a game in the 1960s between two of the world’s great men’s teams, it would bear little resemblance to the sophisticated methods of the present-day game. That’s what professionalism, technical advances and the appliance of cutting-edge medical and physiological science brings. 

In Scotland, serious development of the women’s game is still in the early stages, but it’s already possible to witness the improvements that have been wrought when clubs take it seriously by devoting time, resources and money. 

It’s also worth pointing out here that women’s football was at this stage during the period of the First World War. With senior men’s football being cancelled, the women's game attracted massive attendances for supporters eager to see some form of organised football. 

The fact that they continued to attend these matches in great numbers tells you that they liked what they were seeing. 

Sadly, the women’s game was cut off in its prime when the war was over. The Scottish football authorities outlawed women’s football and forbade referees from officiating at any of their games. This wretched decision by the SFA couldn’t be dismissed merely as emblematic of its time. In 1969 the SFA were the only national football body in Europe to vote against the proposal for UEFA to bring the women’s game into its jurisdiction.

If women’s football had been permitted to develop naturally in the early decades of the 20th century, then Scotland could have been a powerhouse in the game. Instead, we’ve had to watch as other countries have taken ownership of it and promoted it and reaped the rewards that come with it: enfranchising women and young girls in football culture and making them feel part of the game we all love. 

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That young women and girls can have an opportunity to play football at a high level is the most basic gift Celtic can give them in return for their support over many years. 

What Celtic are building with the women’s team is beginning to resonate with our wider support. Now is the time for the club to capitalise on this and to promote our women’s team and develop it to the highest possible level. That means giving the support all possible incentives to watch the team in action on a regular basis. 

However, there is no greater incentive than knowing that a team wearing the green and white hoops are playing football the Celtic way. And our women’s team are doing just that.